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Copyright, 1907, by The Whitman Studio
Helen Keller in Her Study
THE
WORLD I LIVE IN
BY
HELEN KELLER
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF MY LIFE" AND "OPTIMISM"
f^^^V^l
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1910
9TI4, 1903, by
Copyright, li)h
The Century Co.
Published October, 1908
J. F. TAPLEY CO.
New York
TO
HENRY H. ROGERS
MY DEAR FRIEND OF
MANY YEARS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
3
ii The Hands of Others
• •
. 17
hi The Hand of the Race .
• 4
. 28
iv The Power of Touch
• «
. 38
v The Finer Vibrations
• •
. 52
vi Smell, the Fallen Angel
• •
. 64
vii Relative Values of the Senses .
. 78
viii The Five-sensed World .
•
. . 84
ix Inward Visions
93
x Analogies in Sense Perception .
. 104
xi Before the Soul Dawn .
• 4
. 113
xii The Larger Sanctions
• 1
. 122
. 134
, 156
. 166
A Chant of Darkness
•
, . 183
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Helen Keller in her Study . . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGK
Listening" to the Trees 70
The Medallion 126
The Little Boy Next Door 172
PREFACE
The essays and the poem in this book
appeared originally in the "Century
Magazine," the essays under the titles
"A Chat About the Hand," "Sense and
Sensibility," and "My Dreams." Mr.
Gilder suggested the articles, and I
thank him for his kind interest and en-
couragement. But he must also accept
the responsibility which goes with my
gratitude. For it is owing to his wish
and that of other editors that I talk so
much about myself.
Every book is in a sense autobio-
graphical. But while other self-record-
ing creatures are permitted at least to
seem to change the subject, apparently
nobody cares what I think of the tariff,
the conservation of our natural re-
sources, or the conflicts which revolve
xi
PREFACE
about the name of Dreyfus. If I offer
to reform the educational system of the
world, my editorial friends say, "That is
interesting. But will you please tell us
what idea you had of goodness and
beauty when you were six years old?"
First they ask me to tell the life of the
child who is mother to the woman.
Then they make me my own daughter
and ask for an account of grown-up
sensations. Finally I am requested to
write about my dreams, and thus I be-
come an anachronical grandmother ; for
it is the special privilege of old age to
relate dreams. The editors are so kind
that they are no doubt right in thinking
that nothing I have to say about the af-
fairs of the universe would be interest-
ing. But until they give me opportunity
to write about matters that are not-me,
the world must go on uninstructed and
unref ormed, and I can only do my best
with the one small subject upon which I
am allowed to discourse.
xii
PREFACE
I In "The Chant of Darkness" I did
not intend to set up as a poet. I thought
I was writing prose, except for the mag-
nificent passage from Job which I was
paraphrasing. But this part seemed to
my friends to separate itself from the
exposition, and I made it into a kind of
poem.
H. K.
Wrenthara, Massachusetts,
July 1st, 1908.
xm
I
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
THE SEEING HAND
I have just touched my dog. He was
rolling on the grass, with pleasure in
every muscle and limb. I wanted to
catch a picture of him in my fingers, and
I touched him as lightly as I would cob-
webs; but lo, his fat body revolved,
stiffened and solidified into an upright
position, and his tongue gave my hand a
lick! He pressed close to me, as if he
were fain to crowd himself into my
hand. He loved it with his tail, with his
3
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
paw, with his tongue. If he could
speak, I believe he would say with me
that paradise is attained by touch; for
in touch is all love and intelligence.
This small incident started me on a
chat about hands, and if my chat is
fortunate I have to thank my dog-star.
In any case, it is pleasant to have some-
thing to talk about that no one else has
monopolized; it is like making a new
path in the trackless woods, blazing the
trail where no foot has pressed before.
I am glad to take you by the hand and
lead you along an untrodden way into a
world where the hand is supreme. But
at the very outset we encounter a diffi-
culty. You are so accustomed to light,
I fear you will stumble when I try to
guide you through the land of darkness
and silence. The blind are not supposed
to be the best of guides. Still, though I
4
THE SEEING HAND
cannot warrant not to lose you, I prom-
ise that you shall not be led into fire or
water, or fall into a deep pit. If you
will follow me patiently, you will find
that "there 's a sound so fine, nothing
lives 'twixt it and silence," and that
there is more meant in things than meets
the eye.
My hand is to me what your hearing
and sight together are to you. In large
measure we travel the same highways,
read the same books, speak the same
language, yet our experiences are dif-
ferent. All my comings and goings
turn on the hand as on a pivot. It is the
hand that binds me to the world of men
and women. The hand is my feeler with
which I reach through isolation and
darkness and seize every pleasure, every
activity that my fingers encounter.
With the dropping of a little word from
5
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
another's hand into mine, a slight flutter
of the fingers, began the intelligence,
the joy, the fullness of my life. Like
Job, I feel as if a hand had made me,
fashioned me together round about and
molded my very soul.
In all my experiences and thoughts I
am conscious of a hand. Whatever
moves me, whatever thrills me, is as a
hand that touches me in the dark, and
that touch is my reality. You might as
well say that a sight which makes you
glad, or a blow which brings the sting-
ing tears to your eyes, is unreal as to say
that those impressions are unreal which
I have accumulated by means of touch.
The delicate tremble of a butterfly's
wings in my hand, the soft petals of
violets curling in the cool folds of their
leaves or lifting sweetly out of the
meadow-grass, the clear, firm outline of
6
THE SEEING HAND
face and limb, the smooth arch of a
horse's neck and the velvety touch of his
nose — all these, and a thousand result-
ant combinations, which take shape in
my mind, constitute my world.
Ideas make the world we live in, and
impressions furnish ideas. My world is
built of touch-sensations, devoid of
physical color and sound; but without
color and sound it breathes and throbs
with life. Every object is associated in
my mind with tactual qualities which,
combined in countless ways, give me a
sense of power, of beauty, or of incon-
gruity : for with my hands I can feel the
comic as well as the beautiful in the
outward appearance of things. Re-
member that you, dependent on your
sight, do not realize how many things
are tangible. All palpable things are
mobile or rigid, solid or liquid, big or
7
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
small, warm or cold, and these qualities
are variously modified. The coolness of
a water-lily rounding into bloom is dif-
ferent from the coolness of an evening
wind in summer, and different again
from the coolness of the rain that soaks
into the hearts of growing things and
gives them life and body. The velvet
of the rose is not that of a ripe
peach or of a baby's dimpled cheek.
The hardness of the rock is to
the hardness of wood what a man's
deep bass is to a woman's voice
when it is low. What I call beauty I
find in certain combinations of all these
qualities, and is largely derived from
the flow of curved and straight lines
which is over all things.
"What does the straight line mean to
you?" I think you will ask.
It means several things. It symbol-
8
THE SEEING HAND
izes duty. It seems to have the quality
of inexorableness that duty has. When
I have something to do that must not be
set aside, I feel as if I were going for-
ward in a straight line, bound to arrive
somewhere, or go on forever without
swerving to the right or to the left.
That is what it means. To escape this
moralizing you should ask, "How does
the straight line feel?" It feels, as I
suppose it looks, straight— a dull
thought drawn out endlessly. Elo-
quence to the touch resides not in
straight lines, but in unstraight lines, or
in many curved and straight lines
together. They appear and disappear,
are now deep, now shallow, now broken
off or lengthened or swelling. They
rise and sink beneath my fingers, they
are full of sudden starts and pauses, and
their variety is inexhaustible and won-
9
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
derful. So you see I am not shut out
from the region of the beautiful, though
my hand cannot perceive the brilliant
colors in the sunset or on the mountain,
or reach into the blue depths of the
sky.
Physics tells me that I am well
off in a world which, I am told, knows
neither color nor sound, but is made in
terms of size, shape, and inherent
qualities; for at least every object
appears to my fingers standing solidly
right side up, and is not an inverted
image on the retina which, I under-
stand, your brain is at infinite though
unconscious labor to set back on
its feet. A tangible object passes com-
plete into my brain with the warmth of
life upon it, and occupies the same place
that it does in space; for, without ego-
tism, the mind is as large as the universe.
10
THE SEEING HAND
When I think of hills, I think of the up-
ward strength I tread upon. When
water is the object of my thought, I feel
the cool shock of the plunge and the
quick yielding of the waves that crisp
and curl and ripple about my body. The
pleasing changes of rough and smooth,
pliant and rigid, curved and straight in
the bark and branches of a tree give the
truth to my hand. The immovable rock,
with its juts and warped surface, bends
beneath my fingers into all manner of
grooves and hollows. The bulge of a
watermelon and the puff ed-up rotundi-
ties of squashes that sprout, bud, and
ripen in that strange garden planted
somewhere behind my finger-tips are
the ludicrous in my tactual memory and
imagination. My fingers are tickled to
delight by the soft ripple of a baby's
laugh, and find amusement in the lusty
11
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
crow of the barnyard autocrat. Once I
had a pet rooster that used to perch on
my knee and stretch his neck and crow.
A bird in my hand was then worth two
in the — barnyard.
My ringers cannot, of course, get the
impression of a large whole at a glance ;
but I feel the parts, and my mind puts
them together. I move around my
house, touching object after object in
order, before I can form an idea of the
entire house. In other people's houses I
can touch only what is shown me — the
chief objects of interest, carvings on the
wall, or a curious architectural feature,
exhibited like the family album. There-
fore a house with which I am not famil-
iar has for me, at first, no general ef-
fect or harmony of detail. It is not a
complete conception, but a collection of
object-impressions which, as they come
TO
THE SEEING HAND
to me, are disconnected and isolated.
But my mind is full of associations, sen-
sations, theories, and with them it con-
structs the house. The process reminds
me of the building of Solomon's temple,
where was neither saw, nor hammer, nor
any tool heard while the stones were
being laid one upon another. The
silent worker is imagination which de-
crees reality out of chaos.
Without imagination what a poor
thing my world would be ! My garden
would be a silent patch of earth strewn
with sticks of a variety of shapes and
smells. But when the eye of my mind
is opened to its beauty, the bare ground
brightens beneath my feet, and the
hedge-row bursts into leaf, and the rose-
tree shakes its fragrance everywhere. I
know how budding trees look, and I en-
ter into the amorous joy of the mating
13
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
birds, and this is the miracle of imagina-
tion.
Twofold is the miracle when, through
my fingers, my imagination reaches
forth and meets the imagination of an
artist which he has embodied in a sculp-
tured form. Although, compared with
the life-warm, mobile face of a friend,
the marble is cold and pulseless and un-
responsive, yet it is beautiful to my
hand. Its flowing curves and bendings
are a real pleasure ; only breath is want-
ing ; but under the spell of the imagina-
tion the marble thrills and becomes the
divine reality of the ideal. Imagination
puts a sentiment into every line and
curve, and the statue in my touch is in-
deed the goddess herself who breathes
and moves and enchants.
It is true, however, that some sculp-
tures, even recognized masterpieces, do
14
THE SEEING HAND
not please my hand. When I touch
what there is of the Winged Victory,
it reminds me at first of a headless, limb-
less dream that flies toward me in an
unrestful sleep. The garments of the
Victory thrust stiffly out behind, and do
not resemble garments that I have felt
flying, fluttering, folding, spreading in
the wind. But imagination fulfils these
imperfections, and straightway the Vic-
tory becomes a powerful and spirited
figure with the sweep of sea-winds in
her robes and the splendor of conquest
in her wings.
I find in a beautiful statue per-
fection of bodily form, the qualities
of balance and completeness. The
Minerva, hung with a web of poetical
allusion, gives me a sense of exhilaration
that is almost physical; and 1 like the
luxuriant, wavy hair of Bacchus and
15
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
Apollo, and the wreath of ivy, so sug-
gestive of pagan holidays.
So imagination crowns the experience
of my hands. And they learned their
cunning from the wise hand of another,
which, itself guided by imagination, led
me safely in paths that I knew not,
made darkness light before me, and
made crooked ways straight.
16
II
THE HANDS OF OTHERS
The warmth and protectiveness of
the hand are most homef elt to me
who have always looked to it for aid and
joy. I understand perfectly how the
Psalmist can lift up his voice with
strength and gladness, singing, "I put
my trust in the Lord at all times, and
his hand shall uphold me, and I shall
dwell in safety." In the strength of the
human hand, too, there is something
divine. I am told that the glance of a
beloved eye thrills one from a distance;
but there is no distance in the touch of
a beloved hand. Even the letters I re-
ceive are —
2 !7
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
Kind letters that betray the heart's deep
history,
In which we feel the presence of a hand.
It is interesting to observe the differ-
ences in the hands of people. They
show all kinds of vitality, energy, still-
ness, and cordiality. I never realized
how living the hand is until I saw those
chill plaster images in Mr. Hutton's
collection of casts. The hand I know in
life has the fullness of blood in its veins,
and is elastic with spirit. How different
dear Mr. Hutton's hand was from its
dull, insensate image! To me the cast
lacks the very form of the hand. Of
the many casts in Mr. Hutton's collec-
tion I did not recognize any, not even
my own. But a loving hand I never
forget. I remember in my fingers the
large hands of Bishop Brooks, brimful
of tenderness and a strong man's joy.
18
THE HANDS OF OTHERS
If you were deaf and blind, and could
have held Mr. Jefferson's hand, you
would have seen in it a face and heard a
kind voice unlike any other you have
known. Mark Twain's hand is full of
whimsies and the drollest humors, and
while you hold it the drollery changes to
sympathy and championship.
I am told that the words I have just
written do not "describe" the hands of
my friends, but merely endow them with
the kindly human qualities which I
know they possess, and which language
conveys in abstract words. The criti-
cism implies that I am not giving the
primary truth of what I feel; but how
otherwise do descriptions in books I
read, written by men who can see, ren-
der the visible look of a face? I read
that a face is strong, gentle; that it is
full of patience, of intellect; that it is
19
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
fine, sweet, noble, beautiful. Have I
not the same right to use these words in
describing what I feel as you have in
describing what you see ? They express
truly what I feel in the hand. I am sel-
dom conscious of physical qualities, and
I do not remember whether the fingers
of a hand are short or long, or the skin
is moist or dry. No more can you, with-
out conscious effort, recall the details of
a face, even when you have seen it many
times. If you do recall the features,
and say that an eye is blue, a chin sharp,
a nose short, or a cheek sunken, I fancy
that you do not succeed well in giving
the impression of the person, — not so
well as when you interpret at once to the
heart the essential moral qualities of the
face — its humor, gravity, sadness, spir-
ituality. If I should tell you in physical
terms how a hand feels, you would be
20
THE HANDS OF OTHERS
no wiser for my account than a blind
man to whom you describe a face in de-
tail. Remember that when a blind man
recovers his sight, he does not recognize
the commonest thing that has been fa-
miliar to his touch, the dearest face inti-
mate to his ringers, and it does not help
him at all that things and people have
been described to him again and again.
So you, who are untrained of touch, do
not recognize a hand by the grasp ; and
so, too, any description I might give
would fail to make you acquainted with
a friendly hand which my fingers have
often folded about, and which my affec-
tion translates to my memory.
I cannot describe hands under any
class or type; there is no democracy of
hands. Some hands tell me that they do
everything with the maximum of bustle
and noise. Other hands are fidgety and
21
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
unadvised, with nervous, fussy fingers
which indicate a nature sensitive to the
little pricks of daily life. Sometimes I
recognize with foreboding the kindly
but stupid hand of one who tells with
many words news that is no news. I
have met a bishop with a jocose hand, a
humorist with a hand of leaden grav-
ity, a man of pretentious valor with a
timorous hand, and a quiet, apologetic
man with a fist of iron. When I was
a little girl I was taken to see1 a woman
who was blind and paralyzed. I shall
never forget how she held out her small,
trembling hand and pressed sympathy
into mine. My eyes fill with tears as I
think of her. The weariness, pain, dark-
1 The excellent proof-reader has put a query to my use
of the word "see." If I had said "visit," he would have
asked no questions, yet what does "visit" mean but
' " see " (visitare) ? Later I will try to defend myself for
using as much of the English language as I have suc-
ceeded in learning.
22
THE HANDS OF OTHERS
ness, and sweet patience were all to be
felt in her thin, wasted, groping, loving
hand.
Few people who do not know me will
understand, I think, how much I get of
the mood of a friend who is engaged in
oral conversation with somebody else.
My hand follows his motions; I touch
his hand, his arm, his face. I can tell
when he is full of glee over a good joke
which has not been repeated to me, or
when he is telling a lively story. One
of my friends is rather aggressive, and
his hand always announces the coming
of a dispute. By his impatient jerk I
know he has argument ready for some
one. I have felt him start as a sudden
recollection or a new idea shot through
his mind. I have felt grief in his hand.
I have felt his soul wrap itself in dark-
ness majestically as in a garment. An-
23
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
other friend has positive, emphatic
hands which show great pertinacity of
opinion. She is the only person I know
who emphasizes her spelled words and
accents them as she emphasizes and ac-
cents her spoken words when I read her
lips. I like this varied emphasis better
than the monotonous pound of unmodu-
lated people who hammer their meaning
into my palm.
Some hands, when they clasp yours,
beam and bubble over with gladness.
They throb and expand with life.
Strangers have clasped my hand like
that of a long-lost sister. Other people
shake hands with me as if with the fear
that I may do them mischief. Such per-
sons hold out civil finger-tips which they
permit you to touch, and in the moment
of contact they retreat, and inwardly
you hope that you will not be called
24
THE HANDS OF OTHERS
upon again to take that hand of "dor-
mouse valor." It betokens a prudish
mind, ungracious pride, and not seldom
mistrust. It is the antipode to the hand
of those who have large, lovable natures.
The handshake of some people makes
you think of accident and sudden death.
Contrast this ill-boding hand with the
quick, skilful, quiet hand of a nurse
whom I remember with affection be-
cause she took the best care of my
teacher. I have clasped the hands of
some rich people that spin not and toil
not, and yet are not beautiful. Beneath
their soft, smooth roundness what a
chaos of undeveloped character!
I am sure there is no hand comparable
to the physician's in patient skill, merci-
ful gentleness and splendid certainty.
No wonder that Ruskin finds in the sure
strokes of the surgeon the perfection of
25
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
control and delicate precision for the
artist to emulate. If the physician is a
man of great nature, there will be heal-
ing for the spirit in his touch. This
magic touch of well-being was in the
hand of a dear friend of mine who was
our doctor in sickness and health. His
happy cordial spirit did his patients
good whether they needed medicine or
not.
As there are many beauties of the
face, so the beauties of the hand are
many. Touch has its ecstasies. The
hands of people of strong individuality
and sensitiveness are wonderfully mo-
bile. In a glance of their finger-tips
they express many shades of thought.
Now and again I touch a fine, graceful,
supple-wristed hand which spells with
the same beauty and distinction that you
must see in the handwriting of some
26
THE HANDS OF OTHERS
highly cultivated people. I wish you
could see how prettily little children
spell in my hand. They are wild flowers
of humanity, and their finger motions
wild flowers of speech.
All this is my private science of
palmistry, and when I tell your fortune
it is by no mysterious intuition or Gipsy
witchcraft, but by natural, explicable
recognition of the embossed character in
your hand. Not only is the hand as easy
to recognize as the face, but it reveals its
secrets more openly and unconsciously.
People control their countenances, but
the hand is under no such restraint. It
relaxes and becomes listless when the
spirit is low and dejected; the muscles
tighten when the mind is excited or the
heart glad; and permanent qualities
stand written on it all the time.
27
Ill
THE HAND OF THE RACE
Iook in your "Century Dictionary," or
-J if you are blind, ask your teacher
to do it for you, and learn how many
idioms are made on the idea of hand,
and how many words are formed from
the Latin root manus — enough words to
name all the essential affairs of life.
"Hand," with quotations and com-
pounds, occupies twenty- four columns,
eight pages of this dictionary. The
hand is defined as "the organ of appre-
hension." How perfectly the definition
fits my case in both senses of the word
"apprehend"! With my hand I seize
and hold all that I find in the three
28
THE HAND OF THE RACE
worlds — physical, intellectual, and spir-
itual.
Think how man has regarded the
world in terms of the hand. All life is
divided between what lies on one hand
and on the other. The products of skill
are manufactures. The conduct of af-
fairs is management. History seems to
be the record — alas for our chronicles of
war! — of the manosuvers of armies.
But the history of peace, too, the narra-
tive of labor in the field, the forest, and
the vineyard, is written in the victorious
sign manual — the sign of the hand that
has conquered the wilderness. The
laborer himself is called a hand. In
manacle and mannmission we read the
story of human slavery and freedom.
The minor idioms are myriad; but I
will not recall too many, lest you cry,
"Hands off!" I cannot desist, however,
29
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
from this word-game until I have set
down a few. Whatever is not one's own
by first possession is second-hand. That
is what I am told my knowledge is. But
my well-meaning friends come to my
defense, and, not content with endowing
me with natural first-hand knowledge
which is rightfully mine, ascribe to me
a preternatural sixth sense and credit to
miracles and heaven-sent compensations
all that I have won and discovered with
my good right hand. And with my left
hand too ; for with that I read, and it is
as true and honorable as the other. By
what half -development of human power
has the left hand been neglected?
When we arrive at the acme of civiliza-
tion shall we not all be ambidextrous,
and in our hand-to-hand contests against
difficulties shall we not be doubly tri-
umphant? It occurs to me, by the way,
30
THE HAND OF THE RACE
that when my teacher was training my
unreclaimed spirit, her struggle against
the powers of darkness, with the stout
arm of discipline and the light of the
manual alphabet, was in two senses a
hand-to-hand conflict.
No essay would be complete with-
out quotations from Shakspere. In the
field which, in the presumption of my
youth, I thought was my own he has
reaped before me. In almost every
play there are passages where the
hand plays a part. Lady Macbeth's
heartbroken soliloquy over her little
hand, from which all the perfumes of
Arabia will not wash the stain, is the
most pitiful moment in the tragedy.
Mark Antony rewards Scarus, the
bravest of his soldiers, by asking Cleo-
patra to give him her hand: "Commend
unto his lips thy favoring hand." In a
31
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
different mood he is enraged because
Thyreus, whom he despises, has pre-
sumed to kiss the hand of the queen,
"my playfellow, the kingly seal of high
hearts." When Cleopatra is threatened
with the humiliation of gracing Caesar's
triumph, she snatches a dagger, exclaim-
ing, "I will trust my resolution and my
good hands." With the same swift in-
stinct, Cassius trusts to his hands when
he stabs Caesar: "Speak, hands, for me!"
"Let me kiss your hand," says the blind
Gloster to Lear. "Let me wipe it first,"
replies the broken old king; "it smells of
mortality." How charged is this single
touch with sad meaning ! How it opens
our eyes to the fearful purging Lear
has undergone, to learn that royalty is
no defense against ingratitude and
cruelty! Gloster's exclamation about
his son, "Did I but live to see thee in my
32
THE HAND OF THE RACE
touch, I 'd say I had eyes again," is as
true to a pulse within me as the grief he
feels. The ghost in "Hamlet" recites
the wrongs from which springs the
tragedy :
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
At once of life, of crown, of queen
dispatch'd.
How that passage in "Othello" stops
your breath— that passage full of bitter
double intention in which Othello's sus-
picion tips with evil what he says about
Desdemona's hand ; and she in innocence
answers only the innocent meaning of
his words: "For 't was that hand that
gave away my heart."
Not all Shakspere's great passages
about the hand are tragic. Remember
the light play of words in "Romeo and
Juliet" where the dialogue, flying nim-
3 33
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
bly back and forth, weaves a pretty
sonnet about the hand. And who knows
the hand, if not the lover?
The touch of the hand is in every
chapter of the Bible. Why, you could
almost rewrite Exodus as the story of
the hand. Everything is done by the
hand of the Lord and of Moses. The
oppression of the Hebrews is translated
thus: "The hand of Pharaoh was heavy
upon the Hebrews." Their departure
out of the land is told in these vivid
words: "The Lord brought the children
of Israel out of the house of bondage
with a strong hand and a stretched-out
arm." At the stretching out of the hand
of Moses the waters of the Red Sea part
and stand all on a heap. When the
Lord lifts his hand in anger, thousands
perish in the wilderness. Every act,
every decree in the history of Israel, as
34
THE HAND OF THE RACE
indeed in the history of the human race,
is sanctioned by the hand. Is it not used
in the great moments of swearing, bless-
ing, cursing, smiting, agreeing, marry-
ing, building, destroying? Its sacred-
ness is in the law that no sacrifice is valid
unless the sacrificer lay his hand upon
the head of the victim. The congrega-
tion lay their hands on the heads of
those who are sentenced to death. How
terrible the dumb condemnation of their
hands must be to the condemned!
When Moses builds the altar on Mount
Sinai, he is commanded to use no tool,
but rear it with his own hands. Earth,
sea, sky, man, and all lower animals are
holy unto the Lord because he has
formed them with his hand. When the
Psalmist considers the heavens and the
earth, he exclaims: "What is man, O
Lord, that thou art mindful of him?
35
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
For thou hast made him to have dominion
over the works of thy hands." The sup-
plicating gesture of the hand always ac-
companies the spoken prayer, and with
clean hands goes the pure heart.
Christ comforted and blessed and
healed and wrought many miracles with
his hands. He touched the eyes of the
blind, and they were opened. When
Jairus sought him, overwhelmed with
grief, Jesus went and laid his hands on
the ruler's daughter, and she awoke
from the sleep of death to her father's
love. You also remember how he healed
the crooked woman. He said to her,
"Woman, thou art loosed from thine in-
firmity," and he laid his hands on her,
and immediately she was made straight,
and she glorified God.
Look where we will, we find the hand
in time and history, working, building,
36
THE HAND OF THE RACE
inventing, bringing civilization out of
barbarism. The hand symbolizes power
and the excellence of work. The me-
chanic's hand, that minister of elemental
forces, the hand that hews, saws, cuts,
builds, is useful in the world equally
with the delicate hand that paints a wild
flower or molds a Grecian urn, or the
hand of a statesman that writes a law.
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have
no need of thee." Blessed be the hand!
Thrice blessed be the hands that work !
37
IV
THE POWER OF TOUCH
Some months ago, in a newspaper
which announced the publication of
the "Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the
Blind," appeared the following para-
graph :
"Many poems and stories must be
omitted because they deal with sight.
Allusion to moonbeams, rainbows, star-
light, clouds, and beautiful scenery may
not be printed, because they serve to
emphasize the blind man's sense of his
affliction."
That is to say, I may not talk about
beautiful mansions and gardens because
38
THE POWER OF TOUCH
I am poor. I may not read about Paris
and the West Indies because I cannot
visit them in their territorial reality. I
may not dream of heaven because it is
possible that I may never go there. Yet
a venturesome spirit impels me to use
words of sight and sound whose mean-
ing I can guess only from analogy and
fancy. This hazardous game is half the
delight, the frolic, of daily life. I glow
as I read of splendors which the eye
alone can survey. Allusions to moon-
beams and clouds do not emphasize the
sense of my affliction: they carry my
soul beyond affliction's narrow actuality.
Critics delight to tell us what we can-
not do. They assume that blindness and
deafness sever us completely from the
things which the seeing and the hearing
enjoy, and hence they assert we have no
moral right to talk about beauty, the
39
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
skies, mountains, the song of birds, and
colors. They declare that the very sen-
sations we have from the sense of touch
are "vicarious," as though our friends
felt the sun for us ! They deny a priori
what they have not seen and I have felt.
Some brave doubters have gone so far
even as to deny my existence. In order,
therefore, that I may know that I exist,
I resort to Descartes's method: "I think,
therefore I am." Thus I am metaphys-
ically established, and I throw upon the
doubters the burden of proving my non-
existence. When we consider how little
has been found out about the mind, is it
not amazing that any one should pre-
sume to define what one can know or
cannot know? I admit that there are
innumerable marvels in the visible uni-
verse unguessed by me. Likewise, O
confident critic, there are a myriad sen-
40
THE POWER OF TOUCH
sations perceived by me of which you do
not dream.
Necessity gives to the eye a precious
power of seeing, and in the same way it
gives a precious power of feeling to the
whole body. Sometimes it seems as if
the very substance of my flesh were so
many eyes looking out at will upon a
world new created every day. The
silence and darkness which are said to
shut me in, open my door most hospi-
tably to countless sensations that dis-
tract, inform, admonish, and amuse.
With my three trusty guides, touch,
smell, and taste, I make many excur-
sions into the borderland of experience
which is in sight of the city of Light.
Nature accommodates itself to every
man's necessity. If the eye is maimed,
so that it does not see the beauteous face
of day, the touch becomes more poign-
41
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
ant and discriminating. Nature pro-
ceeds through practice to strengthen
and augment the remaining senses.
For this reason the blind often hear with
greater ease and distinctness than other
people. The sense of smell becomes
almost a new faculty to penetrate the
tangle and vagueness of things. Thus,
according to an immutable law, the
senses assist and reinforce one another.
It is not for me to say whether we see
best with the hand or the eye. I only
know that the world I see with my
fingers is alive, ruddy, and satisfying.
Touch brings the blind many sweet cer-
tainties which our more fortunate fel-
lows miss, because their sense of touch
is uncultivated. When they look at
things, they put their hands in their
pockets. No doubt that is one reason
why their knowledge is often so vague,
42
THE POWER OF TOUCH
inaccurate, and useless. It is probable,
too, that our knowledge of phenomena
beyond the reach of the hand is equally
imperfect. But, at all events, we behold
them through a golden mist of fantasy.
There is nothing, however, misty or
uncertain about what we can touch.
Through the sense of touch I know the
faces of friends, the illimitable variety
of straight and curved lines, all surfaces,
the exuberance of the soil, the delicate
shapes of flowers, the noble forms of
trees, and the range of mighty winds.
Besides objects, surfaces, and atmo-
spherical changes, I perceive countless
vibrations. I derive much knowledge
of every-day matter from the jars and
jolts which are to be felt everywhere in
the house.
Footsteps, I discover, vary tactually
according to the age, the sex, and the
43
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
manners of the walker. It is impossible
to mistake a child's patter for the tread
of a grown person. The step of the
young man, strong and free, differs
from the heavy, sedate tread of the mid-
dle-aged, and from the step of the old
man, whose feet drag along the floor, or
beat it with slow, faltering accents. On
a bare floor a girl walks with a rapid,
elastic rhythm which is quite distinct
from the graver step of the elderly
woman. I have laughed over the creak
of new shoes and the clatter of a stout
maid performing a jig in the kitchen.
One day, in the dining-room of a hotel,
a tactual dissonance arrested my atten-
tion. I sat still and listened with my
feet. I found that two waiters were
walking back and forth, but not with
the same gait. A band was playing,
and I could feel the music-waves along
44
A
THE POWER OF TOUCH
the floor. One of the waiters walked in
time to the band, graceful and light,
while the other disregarded the music
and rushed from table to table to the
beat of some discord in his own mind.
Their steps reminded me of a spirited
war-steed harnessed with a cart-horse.
Often footsteps reveal in some mea-
sure the character and the mood of the
walker. I feel in them firmness and in-
decision, hurry and deliberation, activity
and laziness, fatigue, carelessness, ti-
midity, anger, and sorrow. I am most
conscious of these moods and traits in
persons with whom I am familiar.
Footsteps are frequently interrupted
by certain jars and jerks, so that I know
when one kneels, kicks, shakes some-
thing, sits down, or gets up. Thus I
follow to some extent the actions of peo-
ple about me and the changes of their
45
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
postures. Just now a thick, soft patter
of bare, padded feet and a slight jolt
told me that my dog had jumped on the
chair to look out of the window. I do
not, however, allow him to go uninvesti-
gated; for occasionally I feel the same
motion, and find him, not on the chair,
but trespassing on the sofa.
When a carpenter works in the house
or in the barn near by, I know by the
slanting, up-and-down, toothed vibra-
tion, and the ringing concussion of blow
upon blow, that he is sawing or hammer-
ing. If I am near enough, a certain
vibration, traveling back and forth
along a wooden surface, brings me the
information that he is using a plane.
A slight flutter on the rug tells me
that a breeze has blown my papers off
the table. A round thump is a signal
that a pencil has rolled on the floor. If
46
THE POWER OF TOUCH
a book falls, it gives a flat thud. A
wooden rap on the balustrade announces
that dinner is ready. Many of these
vibrations are obliterated out of doors.
On a lawn or the road, I can feel only
running, stamping, and the rumble of
wheels.
By placing my hand on a person's lips
and throat, I gain an idea of many spe-
cific vibrations, and interpret them: a
boy's chuckle, a man's "Whew!" of sur-
prise, the "Hem!" of annoyance or per-
plexity, the moan of pain, a scream, a
whisper, a rasp, a sob, a choke, and a
gasp. The utterances of animals,
though wordless, are eloquent to me —
the cat's purr, its mew, its angry, jerky,
scolding spit; the dog's bow-wow of
warning or of joyous welcome, its yelp
of despair, and its contented snore; the
cow's moo ; a monkey's chatter ; the snort
47
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
of a horse ; the lion's roar, and the terri-
ble snarl of the tiger. Perhaps I ought
to add, for the benefit of the critics and
doubters who may peruse this essay,
that with my own hand I have felt all
these sounds. From my childhood to
the present day I have availed myself
of every opportunity to visit zoological
gardens, menageries, and the circus, and
all the animals, except the tiger, have
talked into my hand. I have touched
the tiger only in a museum, where he is
as harmless as a lamb. I have, however,
heard him talk by putting my hand on
the bars of his cage. I have touched
several lions in the flesh, and felt them
roar royally, like a cataract over rocks.
To continue, I know the plop of liquid
in a pitcher. So if I spill my milk, I
have not the excuse of ignorance. I am
also familiar with the pop of a cork, the
sputter of a flame, the tick-tack of the
48
THE POWER OF TOUCH
clock, the metallic swing of the wind-
mill, the labored rise and fall of the
pump, the voluminous spurt of the hose,
the deceptive tap of the breeze at door
and window, and many other vibrations
past computing.
There are tactual vibrations which do
not belong to skin-touch. They pene-
trate the skin, the nerves, the bones, like
pain, heat, and cold. The beat of a
drum smites me through from the chest
to the shoulder-blades. The din of the
train, the bridge, and grinding ma-
chinery retains its "old-man-of-the-sea"
grip upon me long after its cause has
been left behind. If vibration and mo-
tion combine in my touch for any length
of time, the earth seems to run away
while I stand still. When I step off the
train, the platform whirls round, and I
find it difficult to walk steadily.
Every atom of my body is a vibro-
4 49
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
scope. But my sensations are not in-
fallible. I reach out, and my fingers
meet something furry, which jumps
about, gathers itself together as if to
spring, and acts like an animal. I pause
a moment for caution. I touch it again
more firmly, and find it is a fur coat flut-
tering and flapping in the wind. To
me, as to you, the earth seems motion-
less, and the sun appears to move; for
the rays of the afternoon withdraw more
and more, as they touch my face, until
the air becomes cool. From this I
understand how it is that the shore seems
to recede as you sail away from it.
Hence I feel no incredulity when you
say that parallel lines appear to con-
verge, and the earth and sky to meet.
My few senses long ago revealed to me
their imperfections and deceptivity.
Not only are the senses deceptive, but
50
THE POWER OF TOUCH
numerous usages in our language indi-
cate that people who have five senses
find it difficult to keep their functions
distinct. I understand that we hear
views, see tones, taste music. I am told
that voices have color. Tact, which I
had supposed to be a matter of nice per-
ception, turns out to be a matter of
taste. Judging from the large use of
the word, taste appears to be the most
important of all the senses. Taste gov-
erns the great and small conventions of
life. Certainly the languagl! i -p the
senses is full of contradictions, ancTi^y
fellows who have five doors to their
house are not more surely at home in
themselves than I. May I not, then, be
excused if this account of my sensations
lacks precision ?
51
THE FINER VIBRATIONS
I have spoken of the numerous jars
and jolts which daily minister to my
faculties. The loftier and grander
vibrations which appeal to my emotions
are varied and abundant. I listen with
awe to the'ioll of the thunder and the
muffled avalanche of sound when the sea
flings itself upon the shore. And I love
*he instrument by which all the diapasons
of the ocean are caught and released in
surging floods — the many- voiced organ.
If music could be seen, I could point
where the organ-notes go, as they rise
and fall, climb up and up, rock and
sway, now loud and deep, now high and
52
THE FINER VIBRATIONS
stormy, anon soft and solemn, with
lighter vibrations interspersed between
and running across them. I should say
that organ-music fills to an ecstasy the
act of feeling.
There is tangible delight in other in-
struments, too. The violin seems beau-
tifully alive as it responds to the lightest
wish of the master. The distinction be-
tween its notes is more delicate than
between the notes of the piano.
I enjoy the music of the piano most
when I touch the instrument. If I keep
my hand on the piano-case, I detect tiny
quavers, returns of melody, and the hush
that follows. This explains to me how
sound can die away to the listening ear :
. . . How thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going !
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing !
53
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
I am able to follow the dominant spirit
and mood of the music. I catch the
joyous dance as it bounds over the keys,
the slow dirge, the reverie. I thrill to
the fiery sweep of notes crossed by
thunderous tones in the "Walkiire,"
where Wot an kindles the dread flames
that guard the sleeping Brunhild.
How wonderful is the instrument on
which a great musician sings with his
hands! I have never succeeded in dis-
tinguishing one composition from an-
other. I think this is possible; but the
concentration and strain upon my atten-
tion would be so great that I doubt if
the pleasure derived would be commen-
surate to the effort.
Nor can I distinguish easily a tune
that is sung. But by placing my hand
on another's throat and cheek, I enjoy
the changes of the voice. I know when
54
THE FINER VIBRATIONS
it is low or high, clear or muffled, sad or
cheery. The thin, quavering sensation
of an old voice differs in my touch from
the sensation of a young voice. A
Southerner's drawl is quite unlike the
Yankee twang. Sometimes the flow
and ebb of a voice is so enchanting that
my fingers quiver with exquisite plea-
sure, even if I do not understand a word
that is spoken.
On the other hand, I am exceedingly
sensitive to the harshness of noises like
grinding, scraping, and the hoarse creak
of rusty locks. Fog-whistles are my vi-
bratory nightmares. I have stood near
a bridge in process of construction, and
felt the tactual din, the rattle of heavy
masses of stone, the roll of loosened
earth, the rumble of engines, the dump-
ing of dirt-cars, the triple blows of vul-
can hammers. I can also smell the fire-
55
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
pots, the tar and cement. So I have a
vivid idea of mighty labors in steel and
stone, and I believe that I am acquainted
with all the fiendish noises which can be
made by man or machinery. The whack
of heavy falling bodies, the sudden shiv-
ering splinter of chopped logs, the crys-
tal shatter of pounded ice, the crash of a
tree hurled to the earth by a hurricane,
the irrational, persistent chaos of noise
made by switching freight-trains, the
explosion of gas, the blasting of stone,
and the terrific grinding of rock upon
rock which precedes the collapse — all
these have been in my touch-experience,
and contribute to my idea of Bedlam,
of a battle, a waterspout, an earthquake,
and other enormous accumulations of
sound.
Touch brings me into contact with the
traffic and manifold activity of the city.
56
THE FINER VIBRATIONS
Besides the bustle and crowding of peo-
ple and the nondescript grating and
electric howling of street-cars, I am con-
scious of exhalations from many differ-
ent kinds of shops; from automobiles,
drays, horses, fruit stands, and many
varieties of smoke.
Odors strange and musty,
The air sharp and dusty
With lime and with sand,
That no one can stand,
Make the street impassable,
The people irascible,
Until every one cries,
As he trembling goes
With the sight of his eyes
And the scent of his nose
Quite stopped — or at least much dimin-
ished—
"Gracious! when will this city be finished?"1
1 George Arnold.
57
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
The city is interesting; but the tactual
silence of the country is always most
welcome after the din of town and
the irritating concussions of the train.
How noiseless and undisturbing are the
demolition, the repairs and the altera-
tions, of nature! With no sound of
hammer or saw or stone severed from
stone, but a music of rustles and ripe
thumps on the grass come the fluttering
leaves and mellow fruits which the wind
tumbles all day from the branches.
Silently all droops, all withers, all is
poured back into the earth that it may
recreate ; all sleeps while the busy archi-
tects of day and night ply their silent
work elsewhere. The same serenity
reigns when all at once the soil yields
up a newly wrought creation. Softly
the ocean of grass, moss, and flowers
rolls surge upon surge across the earth.
58
THE FINER VIBRATIONS
Curtains of foliage drape the bare
branches. Great trees make ready in
their sturdy hearts to receive again birds
which occupy their spacious chambers
to the south and west. Nay, there is no
place so lowly that it may not lodge
some happy creature. The meadow
brook undoes its icy fetters with rip-
pling notes, gurgles, and runs free.
And all this is wrought in less than two
months to the music of nature's orches-
tra, in the midst of balmy incense.
The thousand soft voices of the
earth have truly found their way to me
— the small rustle in tufts of grass,
the silky swish of leaves, the buzz of
insects, the hum of bees in blossoms I
have plucked, the flutter of a bird's
wings after his bath, and the slender
rippling vibration of water running
over pebbles. Once having been felt,
59
:
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
these loved voices rustle, buzz, hum,
flutter, and ripple in my thought for-
ever, an undying part of happy mem-
ories.
Between my experiences and the ex-
periences of others there is no gulf of
mute space which I may not bridge.
For I have endlessly varied, instructive
contacts with all the world, with life,
with the atmosphere whose radiant ac-
tivity enfolds us all. The thrilling
energy of the all-encasing air is warm
and rapturous. Heat-waves and sound-
waves play upon my face in infinite
variety and combination, until I am able
to surmise what must be the myriad
sounds that my senseless ears have not
heard.
The air varies in different regions, at
different seasons of the year, and even
different hours of the day. The odor-
60
THE FINER VIBRATIONS
ous, fresh sea-breezes are distinct from
the fitful breezes along river banks,
which are humid and freighted with in-
land smells. The bracing, light, dry air
of the mountains can never be mistaken
for the pungent salt air of the ocean.
The rain of winter is dense, hard, com-
pressed. In the spring it has new vital-
ity. It is light, mobile, and laden with a
thousand palpitating odors from earth,
grass, and sprouting leaves. The air of
midsummer is dense, saturated, or dry
and burning, as if it came from a fur-
nace. When a cool breeze brushes the
sultry stillness, it brings fewer odors
than in May, and frequently the odor of
a coming tempest. The avalanche of
coolness which sweeps through the low-
hanging air bears little resemblance to
the stinging coolness of winter.
The rain of winter is raw, without
61
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
odor and dismal. The rain of spring is
brisk, fragrant, charged with life-giv-
ing warmth. I welcome it delightedly
as it visits the earth, enriches the streams,
waters the hills abundantly, makes the
furrows soft with showers for the seed,
elicits a perfume which I cannot breathe
deep enough. Spring rain is beautiful,
impartial, lovable. With pearly drops
it washes every leaf on tree and bush,
ministers equally to salutary herbs and
noxious growths, searches out every liv-
ing thing that needs its beneficence.
The senses assist and reinforce each
other to such an extent that I am not
sure whether touch or smell tells me the
most about the world. Everywhere the
river of touch is joined by the brooks
of odor-perception. Each season has its
distinctive odors. The spring is earthy
and full of sap. July is rich with the
62
THE FINER VIBRATIONS
odor of ripening grain and hay. As the
season advances, a crisp, dry, mature
odor predominates, and golden-rod,
tansy, and everlastings mark the on-
ward march of the year. In autumn,
soft, alluring scents fill the air, floating
from thicket, grass, flower, and tree,
and they tell me of time and change, of
death and life's renewal, desire and its
fulfilment.
63
VI
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
For some inexplicable reason the
sense of smell does not hold the
high position it deserves among its sis-
ters. There is something of the fallen
angel about it. When it woos us with
woodland scents and beguiles us with
the fragrance of lovely gardens, it is ad-
mitted frankfy to our discourse. But
when it gives us warning of something
noxious in our vicinity, it is treated as if
the demon had got the upper hand of
the angel, and is relegated to outer
darkness, punished for its faithful ser-
vice. It is most difficult to keep the true
significance of words when one discusses
64
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
the prejudices of mankind, and I find it
hard to give an account of odor-percep-
tions which shall be at once dignified
and truthful.
In my experience smell is most im-
portant, and I find that there is high
authority for the nobility of the sense
which we have neglected and dis-
paraged. It is recorded that the Lord
commanded that incense be burnt before
Him continually with a sweet savor.
I doubt if there is any sensation aris-
ing from sight more delightful than
the odors which filter through sun-
warmed, wind-tossed branches, or the
tide of scents which swells, subsides,
rises again wave on wave, filling the
wide world with invisible sweetness. A
whiff of the universe makes us dream of
worlds we have never seen, recalls in a
flash entire epochs of our dearest ex-
5 65
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
perience. I never smell daisies without
living over again the ecstatic mornings
that my teacher and I spent wandering
in the fields, while I learned new words
and the names of things. Smell is a
potent wizard that transports us across
a thousand miles and all the years we
have lived. The odor of fruits wafts me
to my Southern home, to my childish
frolics in the peach orchard. Other
odors, instantaneous and fleeting, cause
my heart to dilate joyously or contract
with remembered grief. Even as I
think of smells, my nose is full of scents
that start awake sweet memories of
summers gone and ripening grain fields
far away.
The faintest whiff from a meadow
where the new-mown hay lies in the hot
sun displaces the here and the now. I
am back again in the old red barn. My;
66
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
little friends and I are playing in the
haymow. A huge mow it is, packed with
crisp, sweet hay, from the top of which
the smallest child can reach the straining
rafters. In their stalls beneath are the
farm animals. Here is Jerry, unre-
sponsive, unbeautiful Jerry, crunching
his oats like a true pessimist, resolved to
find his feed not good— at least not so
good as it ought to be. Again I touch
Brownie, eager, grateful little Brownie,
ready to leave the juiciest fodder for a
pat, straining his beautiful, slender neck
for a caress. Near by stands Lady
Belle, with sweet, moist mouth, lazily
extracting the sealed-up cordial from
timothy and clover, and dreaming of
deep June pastures and murmurous
streams.
The sense of smell has told me of a
coming storm hours before there was
67
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
any sign of it visible. I notice first a
throb of expectancy, a slight quiver, a
concentration in my nostrils. As the
storm draws nearer, my nostrils dilate
the better to receive the flood of earth-
odors which seem to multiply and ex-
tend, until I feel the splash of rain
against my cheek. As the tempest de-
parts, receding farther and farther, the
odors fade, become fainter and fainter,
and die away beyond the bar of space.
I know by smell the kind of house we
enter. I have recognized an old-fash-
ioned country house because it has sev-
eral layers of odors, left by a succession
of families, of plants, perfumes, and
draperies.
In the evening quiet there are fewer
vibrations than in the daytime, and then
I rely more largely upon smell. The
sulphuric scent of a match tells me that
68
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
the lamp's are being lighted. Later, I
note the wavering trail of odor that flits
about and disappears. It is the curfew
signal; the lights are out for the night.
Out of doors I am aware by smell and
touch of the ground we tread and the
places we pass. Sometimes, when there
is no wind, the odors are so grouped that
I know the character of the country, and
can place a hayfleld, a country store, a
garden, a barn, a grove of pines, a farm-
house with the windows open.
The other day I went to walk toward
a familiar wood. Suddenly a disturbing
odor made me pause in dismay. Then
followed a peculiar, measured jar, fol-
lowed by dull, heavy thunder. I under-
stood the odor and the jar only too well.
The trees were being cut down. We
climbed the stone wall to the left. It
borders the wood which I have loved so
69
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
long that it seems to be my peculiar pos-
session. But to-day an unfamiliar rush
of air and an unwonted outburst of sun
told me that my tree friends were gone.
The place was empty, like a deserted
dwelling. I stretched out my hand.
Where once stood the steadfast pines,
great, beautiful, sweet, my hand touched
raw, moist stumps. All about lay
broken branches, like the antlers of
stricken deer. The fragrant, piled-up
sawdust swirled and tumbled about me.
An unreasoning resentment flashed
through me at this ruthless destruction
of the beauty that I love. But there is
no anger, no resentment in nature. The
air is equally charged with the odors of
life and of destruction, for death equally
with growth forever ministers to all-con-
quering life. The sun shines as ever, and
the winds riot through the newly opened
70
Copyright. 1807, by The Whitman Studio
"Listening" to the Trees
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
spaces. I know that a new forest will
spring where the old one stood, as beau-
tiful, as beneficent.
Touch sensations are permanent and
definite. Odors deviate and are fugi-
tive, changing in their shades, degrees,
and location. There is something else
in odor which gives me a sense of dis-
tance. I should call it horizon — the line
where odor and fancy meet at the
farthest limit of scent.
Smell gives me more idea than touch
or taste of the manner in which sight
and hearing probably discharge their
functions. Touch seems to reside in the
object touched, because there is a con-
tact of surfaces. In smell there is no
notion of relievo, and odor seems to re-
side not in the object smelt, but in the
organ. Since I smell a tree at a dis-
tance, it is comprehensible to me that a
71
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
person sees it without touching it. I
am not puzzled over the fact that he re-
ceives it as an image on his retina with-
out relievo, since my smell perceives the
tree as a thin sphere with no fullness or
content. By themselves, odors suggest
nothing. I must learn by association to
judge from them of distance, of place,
and of the actions or the surroundings
which are the usual occasions for them,
just as I am told people judge from
color, light, and sound.
From exhalations I learn much about
people. I often know the work they are
engaged in. The odors of wood, iron,
paint, and drugs cling to the garments
of those that work in them. Thus I can
distinguish the carpenter from the iron-
worker, the artist from the mason or the
chemist. When a person passes quickly
from one place to another I get a scent
72
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
impression of where he has been — the
kitchen, the garden, or the sick-room. I
gain pleasurable ideas of freshness and
good taste from the odors of soap, toilet
water, clean garments, woolen and silk
stuffs, and gloves.
I have not, indeed, the all-knowing
scent of the hound or the wild animal.
None but the halt and the blind need
fear my skill in pursuit; for there are
other things besides water, stale trails,
confusing cross tracks to put me at
fault. Nevertheless, human odors are
as varied and capable of recognition as
hands and faces. The dear odors of
those I love are so definite, so unmistak-
able, that nothing can quite obliterate
them. If many years should elapse be-
fore I saw an intimate friend again, I
think I should recognize his odor in-
stantly in the heart of Africa, as
73
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
promptly as would my brother that
barks.
Once, long ago, in a crowded railway
station, a lady kissed me as she hurried
by. I had not touched even her dress.
But she left a scent with her kiss which
gave me a glimpse of her. The years
are many since she kissed me. Yet her
odor is fresh in my memory.
It is difficult to put into words the
thing itself, the elusive person-odor.
There seems to be no adequate vocabu-
lary of smells, and I must fall back on
approximate phrase and metaphor.
Some people have a vague, unsub-
stantial odor that floats about, mocking
every* effort to identify it. It is the will-
o'-the-wisp of my olfactive experience.
Sometimes I meet one who lacks a dis-
tinctive person-scent, and I seldom find'
such a one lively or entertaining. On
74
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
the other hand, one who has a pungent
odor often possesses great vitality, en-
ergy, and vigor of mind.
Masculine exhalations are as a rule
stronger, more vivid, more widely dif-
ferentiated than those of women. In
the odor of young men there is some-
thing elemental, as of fire, storm, and
salt sea. It pulsates with buoyancy and
desire. It suggests all things strong
and beautiful and joyous, and gives me
a sense of physical happiness. I wonder
if others observe that all infants have
the same scent— pure, simple, unde-
cipherable as their dormant personality.
It is not until the age of six or seven
that they begin to have perceptible indi-
vidual odors. These develop and ma-
ture along with their mental and bodily
powers.
What I have written about smell, es-
75
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
pecially person-smell, will perhaps be
regarded as the abnormal sentiment of
one who can have no idea of the "world
of reality and beauty which the eye per-
ceives." There are people who are
color-blind, people who* are tone-deaf.
Most people are smell-blind-and-deaf.
We should not condemn a musical com-
position on the testimony of an ear
which cannot distinguish one chord from
another, or judge a picture by the ver-
dict of a color-blind critic. The sensa-
tions of smell which cheer, inform, and
broaden my life are not less pleasant
merely because some critic who treads
the wide, bright pathway of the eye has
not cultivated his olf active sense.
Without the shy, fugitive, often unob-
served, sensations and the certainties
which taste, smell, and touch give me, I
should be obliged to take my conception
76
SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL
of the universe wholly from others. I
should lack the alchemy by which I now
infuse into my world light, color, and
the Protean spark. The sensuous real-
ity which interthreads and supports all
the gropings of my imagination would
be shattered. The solid earth would
melt from under my feet and disperse
itself in space. The objects dear to my
hands would become formless, dead
things, and I should walk among them
as among invisible ghosts.
77
VII
RELATIVE VALUES OF THE SENSES
I was once without the sense of smell
and taste for several days. It seemed
incredible, this utter detachment from
odors, to breathe the air in and observe
never a single scent. The feeling was
probably similar, though less in degree,
to that of one who first loses sight
and cannot but expect to see the light
again any day, any minute. I knew I
should smell again some time. Still,
after the wonder had passed off, a lone-
liness crept over me as vast as the air
whose myriad odors I missed. The
multitudinous subtle delights that smell
makes mine became for a time wistful
78
RELATIVE VALUES OF THE SENSES
memories. When I recovered the lost
sense, my heart bounded with gladness.
It is a fine dramatic touch that Hans
Andersen gives to the story of Kay and
Gerda in the passage about flowers.
Kay, whom the wicked magician's glass
has blinded to human love, rushes away
fiercely from home when he discovers
that the roses have lost their sweetness.
The loss of smell for a few days gave
me a clearer idea than I had ever had
what it is to be blinded suddenly, help-
lessly. With a little stretch of the im-
agination I knew then what it must be
when the great curtain shuts out sud-
denly the light of day, the stars, and
the firmament itself. I see the blind
man's eyes strain for the light, as he
fearfully tries to walk his old rounds,
until the unchanging blank that every-
where spreads before him stamps the
79
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
reality of the dark upon his conscious-
ness.
My temporary loss of smell proved
to me, too, that the absence of a sense
need not dull the mental faculties and
does not distort one's view of the world,
and so I reason that blindness and
deafness need not pervert the inner or-
der of the intellect. I know that if
there were no odors for me I should still
possess a considerable part of the world.
Novelties and surprises would abound,
adventures would thicken in the dark.
In my classification of the senses,
smell is a little the ear's inferior, and
touch is a great deal the eye's superior.
I find that great artists and philoso-
phers agree with" me in this. Diderot
says:
Je trouvais que de tous les sens, l'oeil etait
le plus superficiel; l'oreille, le plus orgueil-
leux; l'odorat, le plus voluptueux; le gout,
80
RELATIVE VALUES OF THE SENSES
le plus superstitieux et le plus inconstant ; le
toucher, le plus profond et le plus philosophe.1
A friend whom I have never seen
sends me a quotation from Symonds's
"Renaissance in Italy" :
Lorenzo Ghiberti, after describing a piece
of antique sculpture he saw in Rome adds,
"To express the perfection of learning, mas-
tery, and art displayed in it is beyond the
power of language. Its more exquisite beau-
ties could not be discovered by the sight, but
only by the touch of the hand passed over it."
Of another classic marble at Padua he says,
"This statue, when the Christian faith tri-
umphed, was hidden in that place by some
gentle soul, who, seeing it so perfect, fash-
ioned with art so wonderful, and with such
power of genius, and being moved to reverent
pity, caused a sepulchre of bricks to be built,
and there within buried the statue, and cov-
1 1 found that of the senses, the eye is the most super-
ficial, the ear the most arrogant, smell the most volup-
tuous, taste the most superstitious and fickle, touch the
most profound and the most philosophical.
« 81
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
ered it with a broad slab of stone, that it
might not in any way be injured. It has
very many sweet beauties which the eyes
alone can comprehend not, either by strong
or tempered light; only the hand by touch-
ing them finds them out."
Hold out your hands to feel the lux-
ury of the sunbeams. Press the soft
blossoms against your cheek, and finger
their graces of form, their delicate mu-
tability of shape, their pliancy and
freshness. Expose your face to the
aerial floods that sweep the heavens,
"inhale great draughts of space," won-
der, wonder at the wind's unwearied
activity. Pile note on note the infinite
music that flows increasingly to your
soul from the tactual sonorities of a
thousand branches and tumbling wa-
ters. How can the world be shriveled
when this most profound, emotional
82
RELATIVE VALUES OF THE SENSES
sense, touch, is faithful to its service ? I
am sure that if a fairy bade me choose
between the sense of sight and that of
touch, I would not part with the warm,
endearing contact of human hands or
the wealth of form, the mobility and
fullness that press into my palms.
83
VIII
THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD
The poets have taught us how full
of wonders is the night; and the
night of blindness has its wonders, too.
The only lightless dark is the night of
ignorance and insensibility. We differ,
blind and seeing, one from another, not
in our senses, but in the use we make of
them, in the imagination and courage
with which we seek wisdom beyond our
senses.
It is more difficult to teach ignorance
to think than to teach an intelligent
blind man to see the grandeur of Niag-
ara. I have walked with people whose
eyes are full of light, but who see noth-
84
THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD
ing in wood, sea, or sky, nothing in city
streets, nothing in books. What a wit-
less masquerade is this seeing! It were
better far to sail forever in the night of
blindness, with sense and feeling and
mind, than to be thus content with the
mere act of seeing. They have the sun-
set, the morning skies, the purple of dis-
tant hills, yet their souls voyage through
this enchanted world with a barren
stare.
The calamity of the blind is immense,
irreparable. But it does not take away
our share of the things that count— ser-
vice, friendship, humor, imagination,
wisdom. It is the secret inner will that
controls one's fate. We are capable of
willing to be good, of loving and being
loved, of thinking to the end that we may
be wiser. We possess these spirit-born
forces equally with all God's children.
85
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
Therefore we, too, see the lightnings
and hear the thunders of Sinai. We,
too, march through the wilderness and
the solitary place that shall be glad
for us, and as we pass, God maketh the
desert to blossom like the rose. We, too,
go in unto the Promised Land to pos-
sess the treasures of the spirit, the un-
seen permanence of life and nature.
The blind man of spirit faces the un-
known and grapples with it, and what
else does the world of seeing men do?
He has imagination, sympathy, human-
ity, and these ineradicable existences
compel him to share by a sort of proxy
in a sense he has not. When he meets
terms of color, light, physiognomy, he
guesses, divines, puzzles out their mean-
ing by analogies drawn from the senses
he has. I naturally tend to think, rea-
son, draw inferences as if I had five
86
THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD
senses instead of three. This tendency
is beyond my control; it is involuntary,
habitual, instinctive. I cannot compel
my mind to say "I feel" instead of "I
see" or "I hear." The word "feel"
proves on examination to be no less a
convention than "see" and "hear" when
I seek for words accurately to describe
the outward things that affect my three
bodily senses. When a man loses a leg,
his brain persists in impelling him to
use what he has not and yet feels to be
there. Can it be that the brain is so con-
stituted that it will continue the activ-
ity which animates the sight and the
hearing, after the eye and the ear have
been destroyed?
It might seem that the five senses
would work intelligently together only
when resident in the same body. Yet
when two or three are left unaided, they
87
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
reach out for their complements in an-
other body, and find that they yoke
easily with the borrowed team. When
my hand aches from overtouching, I
find relief in the sight of another.
When my mind lags, wearied with the
strain of forcing out thoughts about
dark, musicless, colorless, detached sub-
stance, it recovers its elasticity as soon
as I resort to the powers of another
mind which commands light, harmony,
color. Now, if the five senses will not
remain disassociated, the life of the
deaf -blind cannot be severed from the
life of the seeing, hearing race.
The deaf -blind person may be
plunged and replunged like Schiller's
diver into seas of the unknown. But,
unlike the doomed hero, he returns tri-
umphant, grasping the priceless truth
that his mind is not crippled, not limited
88
THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD
to the infirmity of his senses. The
world of the eye and the ear becomes to
him a subject of fateful interest. He
seizes every word of sight and hearing
because his sensations compel it. Light
and color, of which he has no tactual evi-
dence, he studies fearlessly, believing
that all humanly knowable truth is open
to him. He is in a position similar to
that of the astronomer who, firm, pa-
tient, watches a star night after night
for many years and feels rewarded if he
discovers a single fact about it. The
man deaf -blind to ordinary outward
things, and the man deaf -blind to the
immeasurable universe, are both limited
by time and space ; but they have made
a compact to wring service from their
limitations.
The bulk of the world's knowledge is
an imaginary construction. History is
89
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
but a mode of imagining, of making us
see civilizations that no longer appear
upon the earth. Some of the most sig-
nificant discoveries in modern science
owe their origin to the imagination of
men who had neither accurate know-
ledge nor exact instruments to demon-
strate their beliefs. If astronomy had
not kept always in advance of the tele-
scope, no one would ever have thought
a telescope worth making. What great
invention has not existed in the inven-
tor's mind long before he gave it tangi-
ble shape ?
A more splendid example of imagin-
ative knowledge is the unity with which
philosophers start their study of the
world. They can never perceive the
world in its entire reality. Yet their
imagination, with its magnificent allow-
ance for error, its power of treating un-
90
THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD
certainty as negligible, has pointed the
way for empirical knowledge.
In their highest creative moments the
great poet, the great musician cease to
use the crude instruments of sight and
hearing. They break away from their
sense-moorings, rise on strong, compel-
ling wings of spirit far above our misty
hills and darkened valleys into the re-
gion of light, music, intellect.
What eye hath seen the glories of the
New Jerusalem? What ear hath heard
the music of the spheres, the steps of
time, the strokes of chance, the blows of
death? Men have not heard with their
physical sense the tumult of sweet
voices above the hills of Judea nor seen
the heavenly vision; but millions have
listened to that spiritual message
through many ages.
Our blindness changes not a whit the
91
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
course of inner realities. Of us it is
as true as it is of the seeing that the
most beautiful world is always entered
through the imagination. If you wish
to be something that you are not, —
something fine, noble, good,— you shut
your eyes, and for one dreamy moment
you are that which you long to be.
92
IX
INWARD VISIONS
A ccording to all art, all nature, all co-
x\. herent human thought, we know
that order, proportion, form, are es-
sential elements of beauty. Now order,
proportion, and form, are palpable to
the touch. But beauty and rhythm are
deeper than sense. They are like love
and faith. They spring out of a spirit-
ual process only slightly dependent
upon sensations. Order, proportion,
form, cannot generate in the mind the
abstract idea of beauty, unless there is
already a soul intelligence to breathe
life into the elements. Many persons,
93
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
having perfect eyes, are blind in their
perceptions. Many persons, having
perfect ears, are emotionally deaf. Yet
these are the very ones who dare to set
limits to the vision of those who, lack-
ing a sense or two, have will, soul, pas-
sion, imagination. Faith is a mockery
if it teaches us not that we may con-
struct a world unspeakably more com-
plete and beautiful than the material
world. And I, too, may construct my
better world, for I am a child of God,
an inheritor of a fragment of the Mind
that created all worlds.
There is a consonance of all things, a
blending of all that we know about the
material world and the spiritual. It
consists for me of all the impressions, vi-
brations, heat, cold, taste, smell, and the
sensations which these convey to the
mind, infinitely combined, interwoven
94
INWARD VISIONS
with associated ideas and acquired
knowledge. No thoughtful person will
believe that what I said about the mean-
ings of footsteps is strictly true of mere
jolts and jars. It is an array of the
spiritual in certain natural elements,
tactual beats, and an acquired knowledge
of physical habits and moral traits of
highly organized human beings. What
would odors signify if they were not as-
sociated with the time of the year, the
place I live in, and the people I know?
The result of such a blending is some-
times a discordant trying of strings far
removed from a melody, very far from
a symphony. (For the benefit of those
who must be reassured, I will say that I
have felt a musician tuning his violin,
that I have read about a symphony, and
so have a fair intellectual perception of
my metaphor.) But with training and
. 95
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
experience the faculties gather up the
stray notes and combine them into a
full, harmonious whole. If the person
who accomplishes this task is peculiarly
gifted, we call him a poet. The blind
and the deaf are not great poets, it is
true. Yet now and again you find one
deaf and blind who has attained to his
royal kingdom of beauty.
I have a little volume of poems by a
deaf-blind lady, Madame Bertha Ga-
leron. Her poetry has versatility of
thought. Now it is tender and sweet,
now full of tragic passion and the stern-
ness of destiny. Victor Hugo called
her "La Grande Voyante." She has
written several plays, two of which
have been acted in Paris. The French
Academy has crowned her work.
The infinite wonders of the universe
are revealed to us in exact measure as
96
INWARD VISIONS
we are capable of receiving them. The
keenness of our vision depends not on
how much we can see, but on how much
we feel. Nor yet does mere know-
ledge create beauty. Nature sings her
most exquisite songs to those who love
her. She does not unfold her secrets to
those who come only to gratify their de-
sire of analysis, to gather facts, but to
those who see in her manifold phenom-
ena suggestions of lofty, delicate senti-
ments.
Am I to be denied the use of such ad-
jectives as "freshness" and "sparkle,"
"dark" and "gloomy"? I have walked
in the fields at early morning. I have
felt a rose-bush laden with dew and fra-
grance. I have felt the curves and
graces of my kitten at play. I have
known the sweet, shy ways of little chil-
dren. I have known the sad opposites
7 97
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
of all these, a ghastly touch picture.
Remember, I have sometimes traveled
over a dusty road as far as my feet
could go. At a sudden turn I have
stepped upon starved, ignoble weeds,
and reaching out my hands, I have
touched a fair tree out of which a para-
site had taken the life like a vampire. I
have touched a pretty bird whose soft
wings hung limp, whose little heart beat
no more. I have wept over the feeble-
ness and deformity of a child, lame, or
born blind, or, worse still, mindless. If
I had the genius of Thomson, I, too,
could depict a "City of Dreadful
Night" from mere touch sensations.
From contrasts so irreconcilable can we
fail to form an idea of beauty and know
surely when we meet with loveliness?
Here is a sonnet eloquent of a blind
man's power of vision :
98
INWARD VISIONS
THE MOUNTAIN TO THE PINE
Thou tall, majestic monarch of the wood,
That standest where no wild vines dare to
creep,
Men call thee old, and say that thou hast
stood
A century upon my rugged steep ;
Yet unto me thy life is but a day,
When I recall the things that I have seen, —
The forest monarchs that have passed away
Upon the spot where first I saw thy green ;
For I am older than the age of man,
Or all the living things that crawl or creep,
Or birds of air, or creatures of the deep ;
I was the first dim outline of God's plan :
Only the waters of the restless sea
And the infinite stars in heaven are old to
me.
I am glad my friend Mr. Stedman
knew that poem while he was making
his Anthology, for knowing it, so fine a
poet and critic could not fail to give it a
99
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
place in his treasure-house of Ameri-
can poetry. The poet, Mr. Clarence
Hawkes, has been blind since childhood ;
yet he finds in nature hints of combina-
tions for his mental pictures. Out of
the knowledge and impressions that
come to him he constructs a masterpiece
which hangs upon the walls of his
thought. And into the poet's house
come all the true spirits of the world.
It was a rare poet who thought of the
mountain as "the first dim outline of
God's plan." That is the real wonder
of the poem, and not that a blind man
should speak so confidently of sky and
sea. Our ideas of the sky are an accu-
mulation of touch-glimpses, literary al-
lusions, and the observations of others,
with an emotional blending of all. My
face feels only a tiny portion of the at-
100
INWARD VISIONS
mosphere ; but I go through continuous
space and feel the air at every point,
every instant. I have been told about
the distances from our earth to the sun,
to the other planets, and to the fixed
stars. I multiply a thousand times the
utmost height and width that my touch
compasses, and thus I gain a deep sense
of the sky's immensity.
Move me along constantly over
water, water, nothing but water, and
you give me the solitude, the vastness
of ocean which fills the eye. I have
been in a little sail-boat on the sea, when
the rising tide swept it toward the
shore. May I not understand the poet's
figure: "The green of spring overflows
the earth like a tide?" I have felt the
flame of a candle blow and flutter in the
breeze. May I not, then, say: "Myriads
101
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
of fireflies flit hither and thither in
the dew-wet grass like little fluttering
tapers"?
Combine the endless space of air, the
sun's warmth, the prevalence of fitful
odors, the clouds that are described to
my understanding spirit, the frequent
breaking through the soil of a brook or
the expanse of the wind-ruffled lake, the
tactual undulation of the hills, which I
recall when I am far away from them,
the towering trees upon trees as I walk
by them, the bearings that I try to keep
while others tell me the directions of the
various points of the scenery, and you
will begin to feel surer of my mental
landscape. The utmost bound to which
my thought will go with clearness is the
horizon of my mind. From this horizon
I imagine the one which the eye marks.
Touch cannot bridge distance, — it is
102
INWARD VISIONS
fit only for the contact of surfaces, —
but thought leaps the chasm. For this
reason I am able to use words descrip-
tive of objects distant from my senses.
I have felt the rondure of the infant's
tender form. I can apply this percep-
tion to the landscape and to the far-ofF
hills.
I OS
X
ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION
I have not touched the outline of a
star nor the glory of the moon, but
I believe that God has set two lights in
my mind, the greater to rule by day and
the lesser by night, and by them I know
that I am able to navigate my life-bark,
as certain of reaching the haven as he
who steers by the North Star. Perhaps
my sun shines not as yours. The colors
that glorify my world, the blue of the
sky, the green of the fields, may not cor-
respond exactly with those you delight
in; but they are none the less color to
me. The sun does not shine for my
physical eyes, nor does the lightning
104
ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION
flash, nor do the trees turn green in the
spring; but they have not therefore
ceased to exist, any more than the land-
scape is annihilated when you turn your
back on it.
I understand how scarlet can differ
from crimson because I know that the
smell of an orange is not the smell of
a grape-fruit. I can also conceive that
colors have shades, and guess what
shades are. In smell and taste there are
varieties not broad enough to be funda-
mental; so I call them shades. There
are half a dozen roses near me. They
all have the unmistakable rose scent ; yet
my nose tells me that they are not the
same. The American Beauty is dis-
tinct from the Jacqueminot and La
France. Odors in certain grasses fade
as really to my sense as certain colors do
to yours in the sun. The freshness of a
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
flower in my hand is analogous to the
freshness I taste in an apple newly
picked. I make use of analogies like
these to enlarge my conceptions of
colors. Some analogies which I draw
between qualities in surface and vibra-
tion, taste and smell, are drawn by
others between sight, hearing, and
touch. This fact encourages me to per-
severe, to try to bridge the gap between
the eye and the hand.
Certainly I get far enough to sympa-
thize with the delight that my kind feel
in beauty they see and harmony they
hear. This bond between humanity and
me is worth keeping, even if the ideas on
which I base it prove erroneous.
Sweet, beautiful vibrations exist for
my touch, even though they travel
through other substances than air to
reach me. So I imagine sweet, delight-
106
ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION
f ul sounds, and the artistic arrangement
of them which is called music, and I re-
member that they travel through the air
to the ear, conveying impressions some-
what like mine. I also know what tones
are, since they are perceptible tactually
in a voice. Now, heat varies greatly in
the sun, in the fire, in hands, and in the
fur of animals; indeed, there is such a
thing for me as a cold sun. So I think
of the varieties of light that touch the
eye, cold and warm, vivid and dim, soft
and glaring, but always light, and I
imagine their passage through the air
to an extensive sense, instead of to a
narrow one like touch. From the ex-
perience I have had with voices I guess
how the eye distinguishes shades in the
midst of light. While I read the lips of
a woman whose voice is soprano, I note
a low tone or a glad tone in the midst of
107
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
a high, flowing voice. When I feel my
cheeks hot, I know that I am red. I
have talked so much and read so much
about colors that through no will of my
own I attach meanings to them, just as
all people attach certain meanings to
abstract terms like hope, idealism,
monotheism, intellect, which cannot be
represented truly by visible objects, but
which are understood from analogies be-
tween immaterial concepts and the
ideas they awaken of external things.
The force of association drives me to
say that white is exalted and pure, green
is exuberant, red suggests love or shame
or strength. Without the color or its
equivalent, life to me would be dark,
barren, a vast blackness.
Thus through an inner law of com-
pleteness my thoughts are not permitted
to remain colorless. It strains my mind
108
ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION
to separate color and sound from ob-
jects. Since my education began I have
always had things described to me with
their colors and sounds by one with keen
senses and a fine feeling for the signifi-
cant. Therefore I habitually think of
things as colored and resonant. Habit
accounts for part. The soul sense ac-
counts for another part. The brain with
its five-sensed construction asserts its
right and accounts for the rest. Inclu-
sive of all, the unity of the world de-
mands that color be kept in it, whether I
have cognizance of it or not. Rather
than be shut out, I take part in it by dis-
cussing it, imagining it, happy in the
happiness of those near me who gaze at
the lovely hues of the sunset or the rain-
bow.
My hand has its share in this multiple
knowledge, but it must never be f orgot-
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
ten that with the fingers I see only a
very small portion of a surface, and that
I must pass my hand continually over it
before my touch grasps the whole. It
is still more important, however, to re-
member that my imagination is not
tethered to certain points, locations, and
distances. It puts all the parts together
simultaneously as if it saw or knew in-
stead of feeling them. Though I feel
only a small part of my horse at a time,
— my horse is nervous and does not sub-
mit to manual explorations,— yet, be-
cause I have many times felt hock, nose,
hoof and mane, I can see the steeds of
Phoebus Apollo coursing the heavens.
With such a power active it is impos-
sible that my thought should be vague,
indistinct. It must needs be potent,
definite. This is really a corollary of
the philosophical truth that the real
110
ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION
world exists only for the mind. That is
to say, I can never touch the world in its
entirety; indeed, I touch less of it than
the portion that others see or hear. But
all creatures, all objects, pass into my
brain entire, and occupy the same extent
there that they do in material space. I
declare that for me branched thoughts,
instead of pines, wave, sway, rustle,
make musical the ridges of mountains
rising summit upon summit. Mention
a rose too far away for me to smell it.
Straightway a scent steals into my nos-
tril, a form presses against my palm in
all its dilating softness, with rounded
petals, slightly curled edges, curving
stem, leaves drooping. When I would
fain view the world as a whole, it rushes
into vision— man, beast, bird, reptile,
fly, sky, ocean, mountains, plain, rock,
pebble. The warmth of life, the reality
111
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
of creation is over all— the throb of
human hands, glossiness of fur, lithe
windings of long bodies, poignant buzz-
ing of insects, the ruggedness of the
steeps as I climb them, the liquid mobil-
ity and boom of waves upon the rocks.
Strange to say, try as I may, I cannot
force my touch to pervade this universe
in all directions. The moment I try, the
whole vanishes; only small objects or
narrow portions of a surface, mere
touch-signs, a chaos of things scattered
at random, remain. No thrill, no de-
light is excited thereby. Restore to the
artistic, comprehensive internal sense its
rightful domain, and you give me joy
which best proves the reality.
112
XI
BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN
Before my teacher came to me, I did
1 not know that I am. I lived in a
world that was a no-world. I cannot
hope to describe adequately that uncon-
scious, yet conscious time of nothing-
ness. I did not know that I knew
aught, or that I lived or acted or de-
sired. I had neither will nor intellect.
I was carried along to objects and acts
by a certain blind natural impetus. I
had a mind which caused me to feel
anger, satisfaction, desire. These two
facts led those about me to suppose that
I willed and thought. I can remember
all this, not because I knew that it was
8 113
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
so, but because I have tactual memory.
It enables me to remember that I never
contracted my forehead in the act of
thinking. I never viewed anything be-
forehand or chose it. I also recall tactu-
ally the fact that never in a start of the
body or a heart-beat did I feel that I
loved or cared for anything. My inner
life, then, was a blank without past,
present, or future, without hope or an-
ticipation, without wonder or joy or
faith.
It was not night — it was not day,
• •••••
But vacancy absorbing space,
And fixedness, without a place ;
There were no stars — no earth — no time —
No check — no change — no good — no crime.
My dormant being had no idea of
God or immortality, no fear of death.
114
BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN
I remember, also through touch, that
I had a power of association. I felt-
tactual jars like the stamp of a foot, the
opening of a window or its closing, the
slam of a door. After repeatedly smell-
ing rain and feeling the discomfort of
wetness, I acted like those about me: I
ran to shut the window. But that was
not thought in any sense. It was the
same kind of association that makes ani-
mals take shelter from the rain. From
the same instinct of aping others, I
folded the clothes that came from the
laundry, and put mine away, fed the
turkeys, sewed bead-eyes on my doll's
face, and did many other things of
which I have the tactual remembrance.
When I wanted anything I liked, — ice-
cream, for instance, of which I was verv
fond, — I had a delicious taste on my
tongue (which, by the way, I never have
115
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
now) , and in my hand I felt the turning
of the freezer. I made the sign, and my
mother knew I wanted ice-cream. I
"thought" and desired in my fingers.
If I had made a man, I should certainly
have put the brain and soul in his finger-
tips. From reminiscences like these I
conclude that it is the opening of the
two faculties, freedom of will, or choice,
and rationality, or the power of think-
ing from one thing to another, which
makes it possible to come into being first
as a child, afterward as a man.
Since I had no power of thought, I
did not compare one mental state with
another. So I was not conscious of any
change or process going on in my brain
when my teacher began to instruct me.
I merely felt keen delight in obtaining
more easily what I wanted by means of
the finger motions she taught me. I
116
BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN
thought only of objects, and only ob-
jects I wanted. It was the turning of
the freezer on a larger scale. When I
learned the meaning of "I" and "me"
and found that I was something, I
began to think. Then consciousness
first existed for me. Thus it was not
the sense of touch that brought me
knowledge. It was the awakening of
my soul that first rendered my senses
their value, their cognizance of ob-
jects, names, qualities, and properties.
Thought made me conscious of love,
joy, and all the emotions. I was eager
to know, then to understand, afterward
to reflect on what I knew and under-
stood, and the blind impetus, which had
before driven me hither and thither at
the dictates of my sensations, vanished
forever.
I cannot represent more clearly than
117
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
any one else the gradual and subtle
changes from first impressions to ab-
stract ideas. But I know that my
physical ideas, that is, ideas derived
from material objects, appear to me
first in ideas similar to those of touch.
Instantly they pass into intellectual
meanings. Afterward the meaning
finds expression in what is called "inner
speech." When I was a child, my inner
speech was inner spelling. Although I
am even now frequently caught spell-
ing to myself on my fingers, yet I talk
to myself, too, with my lips, and it is
true that when I first learned to speak,
my mind discarded the finger-symbols
and began to articulate. However,
when I try to recall what some one has
said to me, I am conscious of a hand
spelling into mine.
It has often been asked what were
118
BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN
my earliest impressions of the world in
which I found myself. But one who
thinks at all of his first impressions knows
what a riddle this is. Our impressions
grow and change unnoticed, so that
what we suppose we thought as children
may be quite different from what we
actually experienced in our childhood.
I only know that after my education
began the world which came within my
reach was all alive. I spelled to my
blocks and my dogs. I sympathized
with plants when the flowers were
picked, because I thought it hurt them,
and that they grieved for their lost blos-
soms. It was years before I could be
made to believe that my dogs did not
understand what I said, and I always
apologized to them when I ran into or
stepped on them.
As my experiences broadened and
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
deepened, the indeterminate, poetic
feelings of childhood began to fix them-
selves in definite thoughts. Nature—
the world I could touch— was folded
and filled with myself. I am inclined to
believe those philosophers who declare
that we know nothing but our own feel-
ings and ideas. With a little ingenious
reasoning one may see in the material
world simply a mirror, an image of per-
manent mental sensations. In either
sphere self-knowledge is the condition
and the limit of our consciousness. That
is why, perhaps, many people know
so little about what is beyond their
short range of experience. They look
within themselves — and find nothing!
Therefore they conclude that there is
nothing outside themselves, either.
However that may be, I came later to
look for an image of my emotions and
120
BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN
sensations in others. I had to learn the
outward signs of inward feelings. The
start of fear, the suppressed, controlled
tensity of pain, the beat of happy mus-
cles in others, had to be perceived and
compared with my own experiences be-
fore I could trace them back to the in-
tangible soul of another. Groping, un-
certain, I at last found my identity, and
after seeing my thoughts and feelings
repeated in others, I gradually con-
structed my world of men and of God.
As I read and study, I find that this is
what the rest of the race has done. Man
looks within himself and in time finds
the measure and the meaning of the uni-
verse.
121
XII
THE LARGER SANCTIONS
So, in the midst of life, eager, im-
perious life, the deaf -blind child,
fettered to the bare rock of circum-
stance, spider-like, sends out gossamer
threads of thought into the measureless
void that surrounds him. Patiently he
explores the dark, until he builds up a
knowledge of the world he lives in, and
his soul meets the beauty of the world,
where the sun shines always, and the
birds sing. To the blind child the dark
is kindly. In it he finds nothing extra-
ordinary or terrible. It is his familiar
world; even the groping from place to
place, the halting steps, the dependence
122
THE LARGER SANCTIONS
upon others, do not seem strange to him.
He does not know how many countless
pleasures the dark shuts out from him.
Not until he weighs his life in the scale
of others' experience does he realize
what it is to live forever in the dark.
But the knowledge that teaches him this
bitterness also brings its consolation —
spiritual light, the promise of the day
that shall be.
The blind child — the deaf -blind child
— has inherited the mind of seeing and
hearing ancestors — a mind measured to
five senses. Therefore he must be influ-
enced, even if it be unknown to himself,
by the light, color, song which have been
transmitted through the language he is
taught, for the chambers of the mind
are ready to receive that language. The
brain of the race is so permeated with
color that it dyes even the speech of the
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
blind. Every object I think of is
stained with the hue that belongs to it
by association and memory. The ex-
perience of the deaf -blind person, in a
world of seeing, hearing people, is like
that of a sailor on an island where the
inhabitants speak a language unknown
to him, whose life is unlike that he has
lived. He is one, they are many; there
is no chance of compromise. He must
learn to see with their eyes, to hear with
their ears, to think their thoughts, to
follow their ideals.
If the dark, silent world which sur-
rounds him were essentially different
from the sunlit, resonant world, it would
be incomprehensible to his kind, and
could never be discussed. If his feel-
ings and sensations were fundamentally
different from those of others, they
would be inconceivable except to those
124
THE LARGER SANCTIONS
who had similar sensations and feelings.
If the mental consciousness of the deaf-
blind person were absolutely dissimilar
to that of his fellows, he would have no
means of imagining what they think.
Since the mind of the sightless is essen-
tially the same as that of the seeing in
that it admits of no lack, it must supply
some sort of equivalent for missing phy-
sical sensations. It must perceive a like-
ness between things outward and things
inward, a correspondence between the
seen and the unseen. I make use of
such a correspondence in many rela-
tions, and no matter how far I pursue
it to things I cannot see, it does not
break under the test.
As a working hypothesis, correspond-
ence is adequate to all life, through the
whole range of phenomena. The flash of
thought and its swiftness explain the
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
lightning flash and the sweep of a comet
through the heavens. My mental sky
opens to me the vast celestial spaces, and
I proceed to fill them with the images of
my spiritual stars. I recognize truth by
the clearness and guidance that it gives
my thought, and, knowing what that
clearness is, I can imagine what light is
to the eye. It is not a convention of
language, but a forcible feeling of the
reality, that at times makes me start
when I say, "Oh, I see my mistake!" or
"How dark, cheerless is his life!" I
know these are metaphors. Still, I must
prove with them, since there is nothing
in our language to replace them. Deaf-
blind metaphors to correspond do not
exist and are not necessary. Because
I can understand the word "reflect"
figuratively, a mirror has never per-
plexed me. The manner in which my
126
Copyright, 1907. by The Whitman Studio
The Medallion
The bas-relief on the wall is a portrait of the Queen Dowager
of Spain which Her Majesty had made for Miss Keller
THE LARGER SANCTIONS
imagination perceives absent things en-
ables me to see how glasses can magnify
things, bring them nearer, or remove
them farther.
Deny me this correspondence, this in-
ternal sense, confine me to the fragmen-
tary, incoherent touch- world, and lo, I
become as a bat which wanders about on
the wing. Suppose I omitted all words
of seeing, hearing, color, light, land-
scape, the thousand phenomena, instru-
ments and beauties connected with them.
I should suffer a great diminution of
the wonder and delight in attaining
knowledge; also— more dreadful loss—
my emotions would be blunted, so that I
could not be touched by things unseen.
Has anything arisen to disprove the
adequacy of correspondence ? Has any
chamber of the blind man's brain been
opened and found empty? Has any
127
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
psychologist explored the mind of the
sightless and been able to say, "There is
no sensation here?"
I tread the solid earth; I breathe the
scented air. Out of these two experi-
ences I form numberless associations
and correspondences. I observe, I feel,
I think, I imagine. I associate the
countless varied impressions, expe-
riences, concepts. Out of these mate-
rials Fancy, the cunning artisan of the
brain, welds an image which the skeptic
would deny me, because I cannot see
with my physical eyes the changeful,
lovely face of my thought-child. He
would break the mind's mirror. This
spirit- vandal would humble my soul and
force me to bite the dust of material
things. While I champ the bit of cir-
cumstance, he scourges and goads me
with the spur of fact. If I heeded him,
128
THE LARGER SANCTIONS
the sweet-visaged earth would vanish
into nothing, and I should hold in my
hand nought but an aimless, soulless
lump of dead matter. But although the
body physical is rooted alive to the Pro-
methean rock, the spirit-proud huntress
of the air will still pursue the shining,
open highways of the universe.
Blindness has no limiting effect upon
mental vision. My intellectual horizon
is infinitely wide. The universe it en-
circles is immeasurable. Would they
who bid me keep within the narrow
bound of my meager senses demand of
Herschel that he roof his stellar universe
and give us back Plato's solid firmament
of glassy spheres? Would they com-
mand Darwin from the grave and bid
him blot out his geological time, give us
back a paltry few thousand years ? Oh.
the supercilious doubters! They ever
0 129
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
strive to clip the upward daring wings
of the spirit.
A person deprived of one or more
senses is not, as many seem to think,
turned out into a trackless wilderness
without landmark or guide. The blind
man carries with him into his dark en-
vironment all the faculties essential to
the apprehension of the visible world
whose door is closed behind him. He
finds his surroundings everywhere homo-
geneous with those of the sunlit world ;
for there is an inexhaustible ocean of
likenesses between the world within, and
the world without, and these likenesses,
these correspondences, he finds equal to
every exigency his life offers.
The necessity of some such thing as
correspondence or symbolism appears
more and more urgent as we consider
the duties that religion and philosophy
enjoin upon us.
130
THE LARGER SANCTIONS
The blind are expected to read the
Bible as a means of attaining spiritual
happiness. Now, the Bible is filled
throughout with references to clouds,
stars, colors, and beauty, and often the
mention of these is essential to the mean-
ing of the parable or the message in
which they occur. Here one must needs
see the inconsistency of people who be-
lieve in the Bible, and yet deny us a
right to talk about what we do not see,
and for that matter what they do not
see, either. Who shall forbid my heart
to sing: "Yea, he did fly upon the wings
of the wind. He made darkness his
secret place; His pavilion round about
him were dark waters and thick clouds
of the skies."
Philosophy constantly points out the
untrust worthiness of the five senses and
the important work of reason which cor-
rects the errors of sight and reveals its
131
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
illusions. If we cannot depend on five
senses, how much less may we rely on
three! What ground have we for dis-
carding light, sound, and color as an in-
tegral part of our world? How are we
to know that they have ceased to exist
for us? We must take their reality for
granted, even as the philosopher as-
sumes the reality of the world without
being able to see it physically as a whole.
Ancient philosophy offers an argu-
ment which seems still valid. There is
in the blind as in the seeing an Absolute
which gives truth to what we know to be
true, order to what is orderly, beauty to
the beautiful, touchableness to what is
tangible. If this is granted, it follows
that this Absolute is not imperfect, in-
complete, partial. It must needs go be-
yond the limited evidence of our sensa-
tions, and also give light to what is in-
132
THE LARGER SANCTIONS
visible, music to the musical that silence
dulls. Thus mind itself compels us to
acknowledge that we are in a world of
intellectual order, beauty, and harmony.
The essences, or absolutes of these ideas,
necessarily dispel their opposites which
belong with evil, disorder, and discord.
Thus deafness and blindness do not ex-
ist in the immaterial mind, which is philo-
sophically the real world, but are ban-
ished with the perishable material senses.
Reality, of which visible things are the
symbol, shines before my mind. While
I walk about my chamber with unsteady
steps, my spirit sweeps skyward on
eagle wings and looks out with un-
quenchable vision upon the world of
eternal beauty.
133
XIII
THE DREAM WORLD
Everybody takes his own dreams se-
riously, but yawns at the breakfast-
table when somebody else begins to tell
the adventures of the night before. I
hesitate, therefore, to enter upon an ac-
count of my dreams ; for it is a literary
sin to bore the reader, and a scientific sin
to report the facts of a far country with
more regard to point and brevity than
to complete and literal truth. The psy-
chologists have trained a pack of theo-
ries and facts which they keep in leash,
like so many bulldogs, and which they
let loose upon us whenever we depart
from the strait and narrow path of
134
THE DREAM WORLD
dream probability. One may not even
tell an entertaining dream without be-
ing suspected of having liberally edited
it, — as if editing were one of the seven
deadly sins, instead of a useful and
honorable occupation! Be it under-
stood, then, that I am discoursing at my
own breakfast-table, and that no scien-
tific man is present to trip the autocrat.
I used to wonder why scientific men
and others were always asking me about
my dreams. But I am not surprised
now, since I have discovered what some
of them believe to be the ordinary wak-
ing experience of one who is both deaf
and blind. They think that I can know
very little about objects even a few feet
beyond the reach of my arms. Every-
thing outside of myself, according to
them, is a hazy blur. Trees, mountains,
cities, the ocean, even the house I live in
135
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
are but fairy fabrications, misty unreal-
ities. Therefore it is assumed that my
dreams should have peculiar interest for
the man of science. In some undefined
way it is expected that they should re-
veal the world I dwell in to be flat,
formless, colorless, without perspective,
with little thickness and less solidity— a
vast solitude of soundless space. But
who shall put into words limitless,
visionless, silent void ? One should be a
disembodied spirit indeed to make any-
thing out of such insubstantial experi-
ences. A world, or a dream for that
matter, to be comprehensible to us,
must, I should think, have a warp of
substance woven into the woof of fan-
tasy. We cannot imagine even in
dreams an object which has no counter-
part in reality. Ghosts always resemble
somebody, and if they do not appear
136
THE DREAM WORLD
themselves, their presence is indicated
by circumstances with which we are per-
fectly familiar.
During sleep we enter a strange,
mysterious realm which science has
thus far not explored. Beyond the
border-line of slumber the investigator
may not pass with his common-sense
rule and test. Sleep with softest touch
locks all the gates of our physical senses
and lulls to rest the conscious will
— the disciplinarian of our waking
thoughts. Then the spirit wrenches it-
self free from the sinewy arms of rea-
son and like a winged courser spurns
the firm green earth and speeds away
upon wind and cloud, leaving neither
trace nor footprint by which science
may track its flight and bring us
knowledge of the distant, shadowy
country that we nightly visit. When
137
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
we come back from the dream-realm,
we can give no reasonable report of
what we met there. But once across
the border, we feel at home as if we
had always lived there and had never
made any excursions into this rational,
daylight world.
I My dreams do not seem to differ very
much from the dreams of other people.
Some of them are coherent and safely
hitched to an event or a conclusion.
Others are inconsequent and fantastic.
All attest that in Dreamland there is no
such thing as repose. We are always
up and doing with a mind for any ad-
venture. We act, strive, think, suffer,
and are glad to no purpose. We leave
outside the portals of Sleep all trouble-
some incredulities and vexatious specu-
lations as to probability. I float wraith-
like upon clouds in and out among the
138
THE DREAM WORLD
winds, without the faintest notion that I
am doing anything unusual. In Dream-
land I find little that is altogether strange
or wholly new to my experience. No
matter what happens, I am not aston-
ished, however extraordinary the circum-
stances may be. I visit a foreign land
where I have not been in reality, and I
converse with peoples whose language I
have never heard. Yet we manage to
understand each other perfectly. Into
whatsoever situation or society my wan-
derings bring me, there is the same
homogeneity. If I happen into Vaga-
bondia, I make merry with the jolly
folk of the road or the tavern.
I do not remember ever to have met
persons with whom I could not at once
communicate, or to have been shocked
or surprised at the doings of my dream-
companions. In its strange wanderings
139
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
in those dusky groves of Slumberland
my soul takes everything for granted
and adapts itself to the wildest phan-
toms. I am seldom confused. Every-
thing is as clear as day. I know events
the instant they take place, and wher-
ever I turn my steps, Mind is my faith-
ful guide and interpreter.
I suppose every one has had in a
dream the exasperating, profitless ex-
perience of seeking something urgently
desired at the moment, and the aching,
weary sensation that follows each fail-
ure to track the thing to its hiding-
place. Sometimes with a singing dizzi-
ness in my head I climb and climb, I
know not where or why. Yet I cannot
quit the torturing, passionate endeavor,
though again and again I reach out
blindly for an object to hold to. Of
course according to the perversity of
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THE DREAM WORLD
dreams there is no object near. I clutch
empty air, and then I fall downward,
and still downward, and in the midst of
the fall I dissolve into the atmosphere
upon which I have been floating so pre-
cariously.
Some of my dreams seem to be traced
one within another like a series of con-
centric circles. In sleep I think I can-
not sleep. I toss about in the toils of
tasks unfinished. I decide to get up
and read for a while. I know the shelf
in my library where I keep the book I
want. The book has no name, but I
find it without difficulty. I settle my-
self comfortably in the morris-chair, the
great book open on my knee. Not a
word can I make out, the pages are ut-
terly blank. I am not surprised, but
keenly disappointed. I finger the
pages, I bend over them lovingly, the
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
tears fall on my hands. I shut the book
quickly as the thought passes through
my mind, "The print will be all rubbed
out if I get it wet." Yet there is no
print tangible on the page !
This morning I thought that I
awoke. I was certain that I had over-
slept. I seized my watch, and sure
enough, it pointed to an hour after my
rising time. I sprang up in the greatest
hurry, knowing that breakfast was
ready. I called my mother, who de-
clared that my watch must be wrong.
She was positive, it could not be so late.
I looked at my watch again, and lo ! the
hands wiggled, whirled, buzzed and dis-
appeared. I awoke more fully as my
dismay grew, until I was at the antip-
odes of sleep. Finally my eyes
opened actually, and I knew that I had
been dreaming. I had only waked into
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THE DREAM WORLD
sleep. What is still more bewildering,
there is no difference between the con-
sciousness of the sham waking and that
of the real one.
It is fearful to think that all that we
have ever seen, felt, read, and done may
suddenly rise to our dream-vision, as the
sea casts up objects it has swallowed. I
have held a little child in my arms in the
midst of a riot and spoken vehemently,
imploring the Russian soldiers not to
massacre the Jews. I have re-lived the
agonizing scenes of the Sepoy Rebellion
and the French Revolution. Cities have
burned before my eyes, and I have
fought the flames until I fell exhausted.
Holocausts overtake the world, and I
struggle in vain to save my friends.
Once in a dream a message came
speeding over land and sea that winter
was descending upon the world from
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ii
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
the North Pole, that the Arctic zone
was shifting to our mild climate. Far
and wide the message flew. The ocean
was congealed in midsummer. Ships
were held fast in the ice by thousands,
the ships with large, white sails were
held fast. Riches of the Orient and the
plenteous harvests of the Golden West
might no more pass between nation and
nation. For some time the trees and
flowers grew on, despite the intense
cold. Birds flew into the houses for
safety, and those which winter had
overtaken lay on the snow with wings
spread in vain flight. At last the foli-
age and blossoms fell at the feet of
Winter. The petals of the flowers were
turned to rubies and sapphires. The
leaves froze into emeralds. The trees
moaned and tossed their branches as the
frost pierced them through bark and
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THE DREAM WORLD
sap, pierced into their very roots. I
shivered myself awake, and with a tu-
mult of joy I breathed the many sweet
morning odors wakened by the summer
sun.
One need not visit an African jungle
or an Indian forest to hunt the tiger.
One can lie in bed amid downy pillows
and dream tigers as terrible as any in
the pathless wild. I was a little girl
when one night I tried to cross the gar-
den in front of my aunt's house in
Alabama. I was in pursuit of a large
cat with a great bushy tail. A few
hours before he had clawed my little
canary out of its cage and crunched it
between his cruel teeth. I could not see
the cat. But the thought in my mind
was distinct: "He is making for the
high grass at the end of the garden.
I '11 get there first!" I put my hand on
10 145
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
the box border and ran swiftly along
the path. When I reached the high
grass, there was the cat gliding into the
wavy tangle. I rushed forward and
tried to seize him and take the bird from
between his teeth. To my horror a
huge beast, not the cat at all, sprang
out from the grass, and his sinewy
shoulder rubbed against me with palpi-
tating strength ! His ears stood up and
quivered with anger. His eyes were
hot. His nostrils were large and wet.
His lips moved horribly. I knew it was
a tiger, a real live tiger, and that I
should be devoured— my little bird and
I. I do not know what happened after
that. The next important thing seldom
happens in dreams.
Some time earlier I had a dream
which made a vivid impression upon me.
My aunt was weeping because she
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THE DREAM WORLD
could not find me. But I took an impish
pleasure in the thought that she and
others were searching for me, and mak-
ing great noise which I felt through
my feet. Suddenly the spirit of mis-
chief gave way to uncertainty and fear.
I felt cold. The air smelt like ice and
salt. I tried to run; but the long grass
tripped me, and I fell forward on my
face. I lay very still, feeling with all
my body. After a while my sensations
seemed to be concentrated in my fingers,
and I perceived that the grass blades
were sharp as knives, and hurt my
hands cruelly. I tried to get up cau-
tiously, so as not to cut myself on the
sharp grass. I put down a tentative
foot, much as my kitten treads for the
first time the primeval forest in the
back yard. All at once I felt the
stealthy patter of something creeping,
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
creeping, creeping purposefully to-
ward me. I do not know how at that
time the idea was in my mind ; I had no
words for intention or purpose. Yet it
was precisely the evil intent, and not the
creeping animal that terrified me. I
had no fear of living creatures. I loved
my father's dogs, the frisky little calf,
the gentle cows, the horses and mules
that ate apples from my hand, and none
of them had ever harmed me. I lay
low, waiting in breathless terror for the
creature to spring and bury its long
claws in my flesh. I thought, "They
will feel like turkey-claws." Some-
thing warm and wet touched my face.
I shrieked, struck out frantically, and
awoke. Something was still struggling
in my arms. I held on with might and
main until I was exhausted, then I
loosed my hold. I found dear old Belle,
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THE DREAM WORLD
the setter, shaking herself and looking
at me reproachfully. She and I had
gone to sleep together on the rug, and
had naturally wandered to the dream-
forest where dogs and little girls hunt
wild game and have strange adven-
tures. We encountered hosts of elfin
foes, and it required all the dog tactics
at Belle's command to acquit herself
like the lady and huntress that she was.
Belle had her dreams too. We used to
lie under the trees and flowers in the old
garden, and I used to laugh with de-
light when the magnolia leaves fell with
little thuds, and Belle jumped up,
thinking she had heard a partridge.
She would pursue the leaf, point it,
bring it back to me and lay it at my feet
with a humorous wag of her tail as
much as to say, "This is the kind of bird
that waked me." I made a chain for
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
her neck out of the lovely blue Paulow-
nia flowers and covered her with great
heart-shaped leaves.
Dear old Belle, she has long been
dreaming among the lotus-flowers and
poppies of the dogs' paradise.
Certain dreams -have haunted me
since my childhood. One which recurs
often proceeds after this wise: A spirit
seems to pass before my face. I feel an
extreme heat like the blast from an en-
gine. It is the embodiment of evil. I
must have had it first after the day that
I nearly got burnt.
Another spirit which visits me often
brings a sensation of cool dampness,
such as one feels on a chill November
night when the window is open. The
spirit stops just beyond my reach,
sways back and forth like a creature in
grief. My blood is chilled, and seems
150
THE DREAM WORLD
to freeze in my veins. I try to move,
but my body is still, and I cannot even
cry out. After a while 'the spirit passes
on, and I say to myself shudderingly,
"That was Death. I wonder if he has
taken her." The pronoun stands for
my Teacher.
In my dreams I have sensations,
odors, tastes, and ideas which I do not
remember to have had in reality. Per-
haps they are the glimpses which my
mind catches through the veil of sleep
of my earliest babyhood. I have heard
"the trampling of many waters."
Sometimes a wonderful light visits me
in sleep. Such a flash and glory as it
is! I gaze and gaze until it vanishes.
I smell and taste much as in my waking
hours; but the sense of touch plays a
less important part. In sleep I almost
never grope. Xo one guides me. Even
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
in a crowded street I am self-sufficient,
and I enjoy an independence quite for-
eign to my physical life. Now I seldom
spell on my fingers, and it is still rarer
for others to spell into my hand. My
mind acts independent of my physical
organs. I am delighted to be thus en-
dowed, if only in sleep; for then my
soul dons its winged sandals and joy-
fully joins the throng of happy beings
who dwell beyond the reaches of bodily
sense.
The moral inconsistency of dreams is
glaring. Mine grow less and less ac-
cordant with my proper principles. I
am nightly hurled into an unethical
medley of extremes. I must either de-
fend another to the last drop of my
blood or condemn him past all repent-
ing. I commit murder, sleeping, to
save the lives of others. I ascribe to
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THE DREAM WORLD
those I love best acts and words which it
mortifies me to remember, and I cast
reproach after reproach upon them.
It is fortunate for our peace of mind
that most wicked dreams are soon for-
gotten. Death, sudden and awful,
strange loves and hates remorselessly
pursued, cunningly plotted revenge, are
seldom more than dim haunting recol-
lections in the morning, and during the
day they are erased by the normal activ-
ities of the mind. Sometimes immedi-
ately on waking, I am so vexed at the
memory of a dream-fracas, I wish I
may dream no more. With this wish
distinctly before me I drop off again
into a new turmoil of dreams.
Oh, dreams, what opprobrium I heap
upon you — you, the most pointless
things imaginable, saucy apes, brewers
of odious contrasts, haunting birds of
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
ill omen, mocking echoes, unseasonable
reminders, oft-returning vexations,
skeletons in my morris-chair, jesters in
the tomb, death's-heads at the wedding
feast, outlaws of the brain that every
night defy the mind's police service,
thieves of my Hesperidean apples,
breakers of my domestic peace, murder-
ers of sleep. "Oh, dreadful dreams
that do fright my spirit from her pro-
priety!" No wonder that Hamlet pre-
ferred the ills he knew rather than run
the risk of one dream-vision.
Yet remove the dream-world, and the
loss is inconceivable. The magic spell
which binds poetry together is broken.
The splendor of art and the soaring
might of imagination are lessened be-
cause no phantom of fadeless sunsets
and flowers urges onward to a goal.
Gone is the mute permission or conniv-
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THE DREAM WORLD
ance which emboldens the soul to mock
the limits of time and space, forecast
and gather in harvests of achievement
for ages yet unborn. Blot out dreams,
and the blind lose one of their chief
comforts; for in the visions of sleep
they behold their belief in the seeing
mind and their expectation of light be-
yond the blank, narrow night justified.
Nay, our conception of immortality is
shaken. Faith, the motive-power of
human life, flickers out. Before such
vacancy and bareness the shock of
wrecked worlds were indeed welcome.
In truth, dreams bring us the thought
independently of us and in spite of us
that the soul
may right
Her nature, shoot large sail on lengthening
cord,
And rush exultant on the Infinite.
155
XIV
DREAMS AND REALITY
IT is astonishing to think how our real
wide-awake life . revolves around
the shadowy unrealities of Dreamland.
Despite all that we say about the incon-
sequence of dreams, we often reason by
them. We stake our greatest hopes
upon them. Nay, we build upon them
the fabric of an ideal world. I can re-
call few fine, thoughtful poems, few
noble works of art or any system of
philosophy in which there is not evi-
dence that dream-fantasies symbolize
truths concealed by phenomena.
The fact that in dreams confusion
reigns, and illogical connections occur
156
DREAMS AND REALITY
gives plausibility to the theory which
Sir Arthur Mitchell and other scientific
men hold, that our dream-thinking is
uncontrolled and undirected by the will.
The will — the inhibiting and guiding
power— finds rest and refreshment in
sleep, while the mind, like a bark with-
out rudder or compass, drifts aimlessly
upon an uncharted sea. But curiously
enough, these fantasies and intertwist-
ings of thought are to be found in great
imaginative poems like Spenser's
"Faerie Queene." Lamb was impressed
by the analogy between our dream-
thinking and the work of the imagina-
tion. Speaking of the episode in the
cave of Mammon, Lamb wrote:
"It is not enough to say that the whole
episode is a copy of the mind's concep-
tions in sleep; it is — in some sort, but
what a copy! Let the most romantic of
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
us that has been entertained all night
with the spectacle of some wild and
magnificent vision, re-combine it in the
morning and try it by his waking judg-
ment. That which appeared so shifting
and yet so coherent, while that faculty
was passive, when it comes under cool
examination shall appear so reasonless
and so unlinked, that we are ashamed to
have been so deluded, and to have taken,
though but in sleep, a monster for a
god. But the transitions in this episode
are every whit as violent as in the most
extravagant dream, and yet the waking
judgment ratifies them."
Perhaps I feel more than others the
analogy between the world of our wak-
ing life and the world of dreams be-
cause before I was taught, I lived in a
sort of perpetual dream. The testi-
mony of parents and friends who
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DREAMS AND REALITY
watched me day after day is the only
means that I have of knowing the ac-
tuality of those early, obscure years of
my childhood. The physical acts of go-
ing to bed and waking in the morning
alone mark the transition from reality
to Dreamland. As near as I can tell,
asleep or awake I only felt with my
body. I can recollect no process which
I should now dignify with the term of
thought. It is true that my bodily sen-
sations were extremely acute; but be-
yond a crude connection with physical
wants they were not associated or
directed. They had little relation to
each other, to me, or to the experience
of others. Idea — that which gives iden-
tity and continuity to experience —
came into my sleeping and waking
existence at the same moment with
the awakening of self-consciousness.
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
Before that moment my mind was
in a state of anarchy in which mean-
ingless sensations rioted, and if thought
existed, it was so vague and inconsequent,
it cannot be made a part of discourse. Yet
before my education began, I dreamed.
I know that I must have dreamed because
I recall no break in my tactual experi-
ences. Things fell suddenly, heavily. I
felt my clothing afire, or I fell into a tub
of cold water. Once I smelt bananas, and
the odor in my nostrils was so vivid that
in the morning, before I was dressed,
I went to the sideboard to look for the
bananas. There were no bananas, and
no odor of bananas anywhere ! My life
was in fact a dream throughout.
The likeness between my waking
state and the sleeping one is still
marked. In both states I see, but not
with my eyes. I hear, but not with my
160
DREAMS AND REALITY
ears. I speak, and am spoken to, with-
out the sound of a voice. I am moved to
pleasure by visions of ineffable beauty
which I have never beheld in the physi-
cal world. Once in a dream I held in
my hand a pearl. I have no memory-
vision of a real pearl. The one I saw in
my dreams must, therefore, have been a
creation of my imagination. It was a
smooth, exquisitely molded crystal.
As I gazed into its shimmering deeps,
my soul was flooded with an ecstasy of
tenderness, and I was filled with won-
der as one who should for the first time
look into the cool, sweet heart of a rose.
My pearl was dew and fire, the velvety
green of moss, the soft whiteness of
lilies, and the distilled hues and sweet-
ness of a thousand roses. It seemed to
me, the soul of beauty was dissolved in
its crystal bosom. This beauteous vision
11 161
o
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
strengthens my conviction that the
world which the mind builds up out of
countless subtle experiences and sug-
gestions is fairer than the world of the
senses. The splendor of the sunset my
friends gaze at across the purpling hills
is wonderful. But the sunset of the
inner vision brings purer delight be-
cause it is the worshipful blending of all
the beauty that we have known and de-
sired.
I believe that I am more fortunate in
my dreams than most people; for as I
think back over my dreams, the pleasant
ones seem to predominate, although
we naturally recall most vividly and tell
most eagerly the grotesque and fantas-
tic adventures in Slumberland. I have
friends, however, whose dreams are al-
ways troubled and disturbed. They
wake fatigued and bruised, and they
162
DREAMS AND REALITY
tell me that they would give a kingdom
for one dreamless night. There is one
friend who declares that she has never
had a felicitous dream in her life. The
grind and worry of the day invade the
sweet domain of sleep and weary her
with incessant, profitless effort. I feel
very sorry for this friend, and perhaps
it is hardly fair to insist upon the plea-
sure of dreaming in the presence of one
whose dream-experience is so unhappy.
Still, it is true that my dreams have uses
as many and sweet as those of adversity.
All my yearning for the strange, the
weird, the ghostlike is gratified in dreams.
They carry me out of the accustomed
and commonplace. In a flash, in the
winking of an eye they snatch the bur-
den from my shoulder, the trivial task
from my hand and the pain and disap-
pointment from my heart, and I behold
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
the lovely face of my dream. It dances
round me with merry measure and darts
hither and thither in happy abandon.
Sudden, sweet fancies spring forth
from every nook and corner, and de-
lightful surprises meet me at every
turn. A happy dream is more precious
than gold and rubies.
I like to think that in dreams we
catch glimpses of a life larger than our
own. We see it as a little child, or as a
savage who visits a civilized nation.
Thoughts are imparted to us far above
our ordinary thinking* Feelings nobler
and wiser than any we have known
thrill us between heart-beats. For one
fleeting night a princelier nature cap-
tures us, and we become as great as our
aspirations. I daresay we return to the
little world of our daily activities Math
as distorted a half -memory of what we
164.
DREAMS AND REALITY
have seen as that of the African who
visited England, and afterwards said he
had been in a huge hill which carried
him over great waters. The compre-
hensiveness of our thought, whether we
are asleep or awake, no doubt depends-
largely upon our idiosyncrasies, consti-
tution, habits, and mental capacity.
But whatever may be the nature of our
dreams, the mental processes that char-
acterize them are analogous to those
which go on when the mind is not held
to attention by the will.
165
XV
A WAKING DREAM
I have sat for hours in a sort of rev-
erie, letting my mind have its way
without inhibition and direction, and
idly noted down the incessant beat of
thought upon thought, image upon im-
age. I have observed that my thoughts
make all kinds of connections, wind in
and out, trace concentric circles, and
break up in eddies' of fantasy, just as in
dreams. One day I had a literary frolic
with a certain set of thoughts which
dropped in for an afternoon call. I
wrote for three or four hours as they ar-
rived, and the resulting record is much
like a dream. I found that the most dis-
166
A WAKING DREAM
connected, dissimilar thoughts came in
arm-in-arm — I dreamed a wide-awake
dream. The difference is that in wak-
ing dreams I can look back upon the
endless succession of thoughts, while in
the dreams of sleep I can recall but few
ideas and images, I catch broken
threads from the warp and woof of a
pattern I cannot see, or glowing leaves
which have floated on a slumber-wind
from a tree that I cannot identify. In
this reverie I held the key to the com-
pany of ideas. I give my record of
them to show what analogies exist be-
tween thoughts when they are not
directed and the behavior of real
dream-thinking.
I had an essay to write. I wanted my
mind fresh and obedient, and all its
handmaidens ready to hold up my hands
in the task. I intended to discourse
167
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
learnedly upon my educational experi-
ences, and I was unusually anxious to
do my best. I had a working plan in
my head for the essay, which was to be
grave, wise, and abounding in ideas.
Moreover, it was to have an academic
flavor suggestive of sheepskin, and the
reader was to be duly impressed with
the austere dignity of cap and gown. I
shut myself up in the study, resolved to
beat out on the keys of my typewriter
this immortal chapter of my life-his-
tory. Alexander was no more confident
of conquering Asia with the splendid
army which his father Philip had disci-
plined than I was of finding my mental
house in order and my thoughts obedi-
ent. My mind had had a long vacation,
and I was now coming back to it in an
hour that it looked not for me. My sit-
uation was similar to that of the master
168
A WAKING DREAM
who went into a far country and ex-
pected on his home coming to find ev-
erything as he left it. But returning he
found his servants giving a party. Con-
fusion was rampant. There was fiddling
and dancing and the babble of many
tongues, so that the voice of the master
could not be heard. Though he shouted
and beat upon the gate, it remained
closed.
So it was with me. I sounded the
trumpet loud and long; but the vassals
of thought would not rally to my stan-
dard. Each had his arm round the waist
of a fair partner, and I know not what
wild tunes "put life and mettle into
their heels." There was nothing to do.
I looked about helplessly upon my
great retinue, and realized that it is not
the possession of a thing but the ability
to use it which is of value. I settled
169
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
back in my chair to watch the pageant.
It was rather pleasant sitting there,
"idle as a painted ship upon a painted
ocean," watching my own thoughts at
play. It was like thinking fine things
to say without taking the trouble to
write them. I felt like Alice in Won-
derland when she ran at full speed with
the red queen and never passed any-
thing or got anywhere.
The merry frolic went on madly.
The dancers were all manner of
thoughts. There were sad thoughts and
happy thoughts, thoughts suited to
every clime and weather, thoughts bear-
ing the mark of every age and nation,
silly thoughts and wise thoughts,
thoughts of people, of things, and of
nothing, good thoughts, impish thoughts
and large, gracious thoughts. There
they went swinging hand-in-hand in
170
A WAKING DREAM
corkscrew fashion. An antic jester in
green and gold led the dance. The
guests followed no order or precedent.
No two thoughts were related to each
other even by the fortieth cousinship.
There was not so much as an interna-
tional alliance between them. Each
thought behaved like a newly created
poet.
His mouth he could not ope,
But there flew out a trope.
Magical lyrics— oh, if I only had writ-
ten them down! Pell-mell thev came
mi
down the sequestered avenues of my
mind, this merry throng. With baccha-
nal song and shout they came, and eye
hath not since beheld confusion worse
confounded.
Shut vour eves, and see them come —
the knights and ladies of my revel.
Plumed and turbaned they come, clad in
171
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
mail and silken broideries, gentle maids
in Quaker gray, gay princes in scarlet
cloaks, coquettes with roses in their hair,
monks in cowls that might have covered
the tall Minster Tower, demure little
girls hugging paper dolls, and rollick-
ing school-boys with ruddy morning
faces, an absent-minded professor car-
rying his shoes under his arms and
looking wise, followed by cronies, fair-
ies, goblins, and all the troops just loosed
from Noah's storm-tossed ark. They
walked, they strutted, they soared, they
swam, and some came in through fire.
One sprite climbed up to the moon on a
ladder made of leaves and frozen dew-
drops. A peacock with a great hooked
bill flew in and out among the branches
of a pomegranate-tree pecking the rosy
fruit. He screamed so loud that Apollo
turned in his chariot of flame and from
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Copyright, 1907, by The Whitman Studio
The Little Boy Next Door
A WAKING DREAM
his burnished bow shot golden arrows
at him. This did not disturb the pea-
cock in the least ; for he spread his gem-
like wings and flourished his wonderful,
fire-tipped tail in the very face of the
sun-god! Then came Venus — an exact
copy of my own plaster cast — serene,
calm-eyed, dancing "high and dispos-
edly" like Queen Elizabeth, surrounded
by a troop of lovely Cupids mounted on
rose-tinted clouds, blown hither and
thither by sweet winds, while all around
danced flowers and streams and queer
little Japanese cherry-trees in pots!
They were followed by jovial Pan
with green hair and jeweled sandals,
and by his side — I could scarcely believe
my eyes ! walked a modest nun counting
her beads. At a little distance were seen
three dancers arm-in-arm, a lean,
starved platitude, a rosy, dimpled joke,
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THE WORLD I LIVE IN
and a steel-ribbed sermon on predesti-
nation. Close upon them came a whole
string of Nights with wind-blown
hair and Days with fagots on their
backs. All at once I saw the ample fig-
ure of Life rise above the whirling mass
holding a naked child in one hand and
in the other a gleaming sword. A bear
crouched at her feet, and all about her
swirled and glowed a multitudinous host
of tiny atoms which sang all together,
"We are the will of God." Atom wed-
ded atom, and chemical married chemi-
cal, and the cosmic dance went on in
changing, changeless measure, until my
head sang like a buzz-saw.
Just as I was thinking I would leave
this scene of phantoms and take a stroll
in the quiet groves of Slumber I noticed
a commotion near one of the entrances
to my enchanted palace. It was evident
174
A WAKING DREAM
from the whispering and buzzing that
went round that more celebrities had ar-
rived. The first personage I saw was
Homer, blind no more, leading by a
golden chain the white-beaked ships of
the Achaians bobbing their heads and
squawking like so many white swans.
Plato and Mother Goose with the numer-
ous children of the Shoe came next. Sim-
ple Simon, Jill and Jack, who had just
had his head mended, and the cat that
fell into the cream — all these danced in
a giddy reel, while Plato solemnly dis-
coursed on the laws of Topsyturvy
Land. Then followed grim-visaged
Calvin and "violet-crowned, sweet-smil-
ing Sappho" who danced a schottische.
Aristophanes and Moliere joined for a
measure, both talking at once, Moliere
in Greek and Aristophanes in German.
I thought this odd because it occurred
175
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
to me that German was a dead lan-
guage before Aristophanes was born.
Bright-eyed Shelley brought in a flut-
tering lark which burst into the song of
Chaucer's chanticleer. Henry Esmond
gave his hand in a stately minuet to Di-
ana of the Crossways. He evidently
did not understand her nineteenth-cen-
tury wit ; for he did not laugh. Perhaps
he had lost his taste for clever women.
Anon Dante and Swedenborg came to-
gether conversing earnestly about things
remote and mystical. Swedenborg said
it was very warm. Dante replied that it
might rain in the night.
Suddenly there was a great clamor,
and I found that "The Battle of the
Books" had begun raging anew. Two
figures entered in lively dispute. One
was dressed in plain homespun and the
other wore a scholar's gown over a suit
176
A WAKING DREAM
of motley. I gathered from their con-
versation that they were Cotton Mather
and William Shakspere. Mather in-
sisted that the witches in "Macbeth"
should be caught and hanged. Shak-
spere replied that the witches had al-
ready suffered enough at the hands of
commentators. They were pushed
aside by the twelve knights of the
Round Table, who marched in bearing
on a salver the goose that laid golden
eggs. "The Pope's Mule" and "The
Golden Bull" had a combat of history
and fiction such as I had read of in
books, but never before witnessed.
These little animals were put to rout by
a huge elephant which lumbered in with
Rudyard Kipling riding high on its
trunk. The elephant changed suddenly
to "a rakish craft." (I do not know
what a rakish craft is ; but this was very
12 }7^
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
rakish and very crafty. ) It must have
been abandoned long ago by wild pi-
rates of the southern seas ; for clinging
to the rigging, and jovially cheering as
the ship went down, I made out a man
with blazing eyes, clad in a velveteen
jacket. As the ship disappeared from
sight, FalstafF rushed to the rescue of
the lonely navigator— and stole his
purse ! But Miranda persuaded him to
give it back. Stevenson said, "Who
steals my purse steals trash." Falstaff
laughed and called this a good joke, as
good as any he had heard in his day.
This was the signal for a rushing
swarm of quotations. They surged to
and fro, an inchoate throng of half -fin-
ished phrases, mutilated sentences, par-
odied sentiments, and brilliant meta-
phors. I could not distinguish any
phrases or ideas of my own making. I
178
A WAKING DREAM
saw a poor, ragged, shrunken sentence
that might have been mine own catch
the wings of a fair idea with the light of
genius shining like a halo about its head.
Ever and anon the dancers changed
partners without invitation or permis-
sion. Thoughts fell in love at sight,
married in a measure, and joined hands
without previous courtship. An incon-
gruity is the wedding of two thoughts
which have had no reasonable courtship,
and marriages without wooing are apt
to lead to domestic discord, even to the
breaking up of an ancient, time-hon-
ored family. Among the wedded cou-
ples were certain similes hitherto invio-
lable in their bachelorhood and spinster-
hood, and held in great respect. Their
extraordinary proceedings nearly broke
up the dance. But the fatuity of their
union was evident to them, and they
179
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
parted. Other similes seemed to have
the habit of living in discord. They had
been many times married and divorced.
They belonged to the notorious society
of Mixed Metaphors.
A company of phantoms floated in
and out wearing tantalizing garments
of oblivion. They seemed about to
dance, then vanished. They reappeared
half a dozen times, but never unveiled
their faces. The imp Curiosity pulled
Memory by the sleeve and said, "Why
do they run away? 'T is strange knav-
ery!" Out ran Memory to capture
them. After a great deal of racing and
puffing and collision it apprehended
some of the fugitives and brought them
in. But when it tore off their masks,
lo! some were disappointingly com-
monplace, and others were gipsy quota-
tions trying to conceal the punctuation
180
A WAKING DREAM
marks that belonged to them. Memory
was much chagrined to have had such a
hard chase only to catch this sorry lot of
graceless rogues.
Into the rabble strode four stately
giants who called themselves History,
Philosophy, Law, and Medicine. They
seemed too solemn and imposing to join
in a masque. But even as I gazed at
these formidable guests, they all split
into fragments which went whirling,
dancing in divisions, subdivisions, re-
subdivisions of scientific nonsense ! His-
tory split into philology, ethnology,
anthropology, and mythology, and these
again split finer than the splitting of
hairs. Each specialty hugged its bit of
knowledge and waltzed it round and
round. The rest of the company began
to nod, and I felt drowsy myself. To
put an end to the solemn gyrations, a
13 181
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
troop of fairies mercifully waved pop-
pies over us all, the masque faded, my
head fell, and I started. Sleep had
wakened me. At my elbow I found my
old friend Bottom.
"Bottom," I said, "I have had a
dream past the wit of man to say what
dream it was. Methought I was— there
is no man can tell what. The eye of
man hath not heard, the ear of man hath
not seen, his hand is not able to taste, his
tongue to conceive, nor his heart to re-
port what my dream was."
182
A CHANT OF DARKNESS
"My wings are folded o'er mine ears,
My wings are crossed o'er mine eyes,
Yet through their silver shade appears,
And through their lulling plumes arise,
A Shape, a throng of sounds."
Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound."
I DARE NOT ask why we are reft of light,
Banished to our solitary isles amid the
unmeasured seas,
Or how our sight was nurtured to glorious
vision,
To fade and vanish and leave us in the dark
alone.
The secret of God is upon our tabernacle ;
Into His mystery I dare not pry. Only this
I know:
183
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
With Him is strength, with Him is wisdom,
And His wisdom hath set darkness in our
paths.
Out of the uncharted,unthin1eable dark we came,
And in a little time we shall return again
Into the vast, unanswering dark.
O Dark! thou awful, sweet, and holy Dark!
In thy solemn spaces, beyond the human eye,
God fashioned His universe ; laid the founda-
tions of the earth,
Laid the measure thereof, and stretched the
line upon it;
Shut up the sea with doors, and made the
glory
Of the clouds a covering for it ;
Commanded His* morning, and, behold ! chaos
fled
Before themplif ted face of the sun ;
Divided a water-course for the overflowing
of waters ;
Sent rain upon the earth —
184s
A CHANT OF DARKNESS
Upon the wilderness wherein there was no man,
Upon the desert where grew no tender herb,
And, lo ! there was greenness upon the plains,
And the hills were clothed with beauty !
Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came,
And in a little time we shall return again
Into the vast, unanswering dark.
O Dark ! thou secret and inscrutable Dark !
In thy silent depths, the springs whereof man
hath not fathomed,
God wrought the soul of man.
O Dark ! compassionate, all-knowing Dark !
Tenderly, as shadows to the evening, comes
thy message to man.
Softly thou layest thy hand on his tired eye-
lids,
And his soul, weary and homesick, returns
Unto thy soothing embrace.
Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came,
And in a little time we shall return again
Into the vast, unanswering dark.
185
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
0 Dark! wise, vital, thought-quickening
Dark!
In thy mystery thou hidest the light
That is the soul's life.
Upon thy solitary shores I walk unafraid ;
1 dread no evil; though I walk in the valley
of the shadow,
I shall not know the ecstasy of fear
When gentle Death leads me through life's
open door,
When the bands of night are sundered,
And the day outpours its light.
Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came,
And in a little time we shall return again
Into the vast, unanswering dark.
The timid soul, fear-driven, shuns the dark;
But upon the cheeks of him who must abide
in shadow
Breathes the wind of rushing angel-wings,
And round him falls a light from unseen
fires.
186
A CHANT OF DARKNESS
Magical beams glow athwart the darkness ;
Paths of beauty wind through his black
world
To another world of light,
Where no veil of sense shuts him out from
Paradise.
Out of the unchartcd,unthinkable dark we came,
And in a little time ive shall return again
Into the vast, unanswering dark.
0 Dark ! thou blessed, quiet Dark !
To the lone exile who must dwell with thee
Thou art benign and friendly ;
From the harsh world thou dost shut him in ;
To him thou whisperest the secrets of the
wondrous night ;
Upon him thou bestowest regions wide and
boundless as his spirit ;
Thou givest a glory to all humble things ;
With thy hovering pinions thou coverest all
unlovely objects;
Under thy brooding wings there is peace.
187
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came,
And in a little time we shall return again
Into the vast, unanswering dark.
Once in regions void of light I wandered ;
In blank darkness I stumbled,
And fear led me by the hand ;
My feet pressed earthward,
Afraid of pitfalls.
By many shapeless terrors of the night
affrighted,
To the wakeful day
I held out beseeching arms.
Then came Love, bearing in her hand
The torch that is the light unto my feet,
And softly spoke Love : "Hast thou
Entered into the treasures of darkness?
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the
night ?
188
A CHANT OF DARKNESS
Search out thy blindness. It holdeth
Riches past computing."
The words of Love set my spirit aflame.
My eager fingers searched out the mysteries,
The splendors, the inmost sacredness, of
things,
And in the vacancies discerned
With spiritual sense the fullness of life ;
And the gates of Day stood wide.
I am shaken with gladness ;
My limbs tremble with joy ;
My heart and the earth
Tremble with happiness ;
The ecstasy of life
Is abroad in the world.
Knowledge hath uncurtained heaven ;
On the uttermost shores of darkness there is
light;
Midnight hath sent forth a beam !
189
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
The blind that stumbled in darkness without
light
Behold a new day !
In the obscurity gleams the star of Thought ;
Imagination hath a luminous eye,
And the mind hath a glorious vision.
in
"The man is blind. What is life to
him?
A closed book held up against a sightless
face.
Would that he could see
Yon beauteous star, and know
For one transcendent moment
The palpitating joy of sight!"
All sight is of the soul.
Behold it in the upward flight
Of the unfettered spirit ! Hast thou seen
Thought bloom in the blind child's face?
190
A CHANT OF DARKNESS
Hast thou seen his mind grow,
Like the running dawn, to grasp
The vision of the Master?
It was the miracle of inward sight.
In the realms of wonderment where I
dwell
I explore life with my hands ;
I recognize, and am happy ;
My fingers are ever athirst for the earth,
And drink up its wonders with delight,
Draw out earth's dear delights ;
My feet are charged with the murmur,
The throb, of all things that grow.
This is touch, this quivering,
This flame, this ether,
This glad rush of blood,
This daylight in my heart,
This glow of sympathy in my palms !
Thou blind, loving, all-prying touch,
Thou openest the book of life to me.
191
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
The noiseless little noises of earth
Come with softest rustle ;
The shy, sweet feet of life ;
The silky flutter of moth-wings
Against my restraining palm ;
The strident beat of insect-wings,
The silvery trickle of water ;
Little breezes busy in the summer grass ;
The music of crisp, whisking, scurrying
leaves,
The swirling, wind-swept, frost-tinted
leaves ;
The crystal splash of summer rain,
Saturate with the odors of the sod.
With alert fingers I listen
To the showers of sound
That the wind shakes from the forest.
I bathe in the liquid shade
Under the pines, where the air hangs
cool
After the shower is done.
192
A CHANT OF DARKNESS
My saucy little friend the squirrel
Flips my shoulder with his tail,
Leaps from leafy billow to leafy billow,
Returns to eat his breakfast from my hand.
Between us there is glad sympathy ;
He gambols ; my pulses dance ;
I am exultingly full of the joy of life!
Have not my fingers split the sand
On the sun-flooded beach?
Hath not my naked body felt the water
sing
When the sea hath enveloped it
With rippling music?
Have I not felt
The lilt of waves beneath my boat,
The flap of sail,
The strain of mast,
The wild rush
Of the lightning-charged winds?
Have I not smelt the swift, keen flight
Of winged odors before the tempest?
193
THE WORLD I LIVE IN
Here is joy awake, aglow;
Here is the tumult of the heart.
My hands evoke sight and sound out of feel-
ing,
Intershifting the senses endlessly ;
Linking motion with sight, odor with
sound
They give color to the honeyed breeze,
The measure and passion of a symphony
To the beat and quiver of unseen wings.
In the secrets of earth and sun and air
My fingers are wise ;
They snatch light out of darkness,
They thrill to harmonies breathed in
silence.
I walk in the stillness of the night,
And my soul uttereth her gladness.
O Night, still, odorous Night, I love thee !
O wide, spacious Night, I love thee !
O steadfast, glorious Night !
194
A CHANT OF DARKNESS
I touch thee with my hands ;
I lean against thy strength;
I am comforted.
0 fathomless, soothing Night !
Thou art a balm to my restless spirit,
1 nestle gratefully in thy bosom,
Dark, gracious mother !
Like a dove, I rest in thy bosom.
Out of the uncharted,unthinkable dark we came,
And in a little time we shall return again
Into the vast, unanswering dark.
195
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